Leaders representing Erie County are calling for Gov. Kathy Hochul to help close a child care funding gap.<\/p>\n
The group, which includes Sen. Jeremy Zellner and Sen. April Baskin, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, and Assemblymembers\u00a0Karen McMahon,\u00a0Patrick Burke, and\u00a0William Conrad III, sent a letter to the governor’s office saying Erie County is facing a $23.1 million deficit in the Child Care Assistance Program.<\/p>\n
“Childcare is not just a family issue,”\u00a0said Baskin.\u00a0“It is economic infrastructure. For thousands of Erie County families, it is a lifeline that makes it possible for parents to work, provide, and build stability. With more than 5,400\u00a0children relying on CCAP and many more waiting, we must close this funding gap so Erie County can participate in this pilot program. I proudly stand with my colleagues in calling for expanded access to universal\u00a0childcare in Erie County.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The group says that covering that funding would allow the county to join a new universal child care pilot for children under the age of three.<\/p>\n
The pilot program would provide Erie County $20 million to offer\u00a0childcare to all\u00a0children from birth to age 3, contingent on a $2 million local match. Closing the CCAP deficit would allow the county to participate fully, providing immediate relief for families and strengthening the regional economy.<\/p>\n
“Affordable\u00a0childcare is essential to the upward mobility of Erie County families. Often, I hear from parents and\u00a0caregivers who say\u00a0childcare is too expensive, or they\u2019ve been put on waitlists. Closing the funding gap and putting the universal\u00a0child care program into the county eases the burden on families and puts our youngest into a structured, educational environment where they can begin to achieve at an early age. I am happy to stand with my legislative colleagues in Western New York in urging our governor to increase funding for the\u00a0Child\u00a0Care\u00a0Assistance Program in Erie County,” said\u00a0Peoples-Stokes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leaders representing Erie County are calling for Gov. Kathy Hochul to help close a child care funding gap.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[8255,40138,1611,136,138,137,139,40140,50,1592],"class_list":["post-124129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","tag-buffalo","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-spectrum-news-staff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}