Public Employee Press

Fight to save day care centers

DC 37 activists supported their union sisters and brothers in DC 1707 as they rallied in January against a rash of child care center closings that are cutting jobs and depriving parents of safe facilities for their children while they go to work.

“DC 37 finds it unconscionable that centers are closing and more are at risk of closing when thousands of eligible parents are in desperate need of affordable child care,” said Moira Dolan, an assistant director of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept.

The Administration for Children’s Services is downsizing the city’s role in providing publicly funded child care centers. Since January 2004, nearly 1,100 preschool child care slots have been eliminated.

Of the 17 centers ACS has closed recently, 11 might have been preserved by finding solutions to chronic problems such as ineffective management or financial improprieties. Instead, ACS chose to close them down, cutting child care opportunities and city costs. ACS has also announced plans to change its funding formula and provide only partial funding for centers.

DC 1707 pointed out that this would have a devastating impact on the city’s day care centers. For almost 40 years, New York City has kept child care centers open and properly staffed by funding them with line-item budgets that cover their staffing and facilities costs.

The Public Advocate and the City Council have both called for public hearings on the closings.

Dolan points to an inconsistency in ACS’s story: “ACS says the closures are related to underenrollment. This is very hard for me to understand, since union members call us every day asking for help in finding child care so that they can get to work.” For example, when the Lucille Murray Center in the Bronx shut down in January, said Dolan, “This seriously affected our members who work nearby at Lincoln Hospital.”

“We stand with our brothers and sisters in DC 1707 in opposing these closings,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.