New York Governor Kathy Hochul is scheduled to deliver her state budget proposal on Wednesday.
As budget season nears, lobbyists and advocates have been packing the hallways of the state capitol in Albany to get their priorities across to lawmakers.
This past week, supporters rallied for an increase in funding and a restructuring of the state’s funding streams for afterschool programs – saying more than one-and-a-half million students are in need of afterschool care.
Kelly McMahon, CEO of the New York State Network for Youth Success, is one of those advocating for an enhanced Afterschool Learning and Enrichment Program. She spoke with WAMC’s Lucas Willard:
In New York State, we have two dedicated funding streams for after school. The first is the Advantage afterschool program. And the second is the Empire State afterschool program. We're looking to invest an additional $219 million to merge these two programs and align them to better strengthen supports for the field. So this investment will really help not only create new access opportunities, but also expand quality.
And this funding not only goes to just school districts, correct?
Correct. So it also goes to community-based organizations, which we believe are critical to having a high quality program to really have that partnership between the school district and the community-based organization.
How does New York State rank in terms of funding for afterschool programs?
Over the recent years, we've actually been doing a lot better, I believe we're now we're number two in the country. But saying that we are still far below what California invests in their afterschool programs.
With the different funding streams that are available now, is that confusing for school districts, nonprofits? How do you navigate where you apply for funding? What is that like?
It's very confusing. There are so many different funding streams, we have one federal funding stream, which is 21st Century, and that's funneled through the State Education Department. And then we have these two state funded afterschool programs, Empire and Advantage. One is funded through Education, and so it goes through the State Education Department, and then to the Office of Children and Family Services, whereas the other program, Advantage, is through Human Services and it's directly through the Office of Children and Family Services. So it's quite complicated.
Is this funding open to organizations large and small? Say it's just a small community school after school program, versus a larger organization like the Boys and Girls Club, where you might have one regional organization with several clubhouses that serves thousands of students.
Yes, absolutely. And we always encourage our smaller programs to apply as well. We know that demand is great. Right now in New York for every one child and an after school program four our waiting to get in. So we know the demand is there. Community-based organizations are allowed to apply. And again, we really encourage those school community partnerships.
Yeah, I'm wondering about how many people just don't know about this kind of state funding.
Too many. Or there’s too many hoops to go through, in order to complete the contracting process to get reimbursed. We've seen some of those issues in previous years where our contractors are waiting for too long to get payment. And so they have to withdraw from the contract, which is certainly something we don't want to see. So we've been working really closely with the state to try and correct some of those issues.
Does your group do any advising for small nonprofits or organizations about filling out paperwork or making sure that the money is spent on time, that kind of thing?
We can. Absolutely. So our entire role at the network is to be a support to the people who are doing the hard work. And so we want to make sure that we have all of the supports and resources internally to support our programs on the ground.
So now as the budget season begins, what [does] the work look like for you, Kelly, or your organization moving forward until, you know, a state budget is passed and signed later this year?
We are going to be meeting a lot. We have a lot of new legislators this session. So we need to do a lot of new education on the importance and value of afterschool, again, that it's not just babysitting that it's so much more. And our children really suffered a lot during the pandemic and we really need to make sure we are supporting them now through this critical time. And we really should be using our American Rescue Plan dollars, New York State, all of that money that was dedicated for after school and summer that was put to the state, the state decided to give back to the local school districts. So now all of the local school districts have so much money that's not being spent, and we're really encouraging them just to work with their community organizations and figure out how they can best support these programs.