STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
5533
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
February 24, 2025
___________
Introduced by Sen. BRISPORT -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Finance
AN ACT to amend the state finance law and the social services law, in
relation to establishing a permanent child care workforce pay equity
fund and the distribution of such fund; and making an appropriation
therefor
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The state finance law is amended by adding a new section
2 97-bbbbb to read as follows:
3 § 97-bbbbb. Statewide permanent child care workforce pay equity fund.
4 1. There is hereby established in the joint custody of the state comp-
5 troller and the commissioner of taxation and finance a fund to be known
6 as the "permanent child care workforce pay equity fund".
7 2. The permanent child care workforce pay equity fund shall consist of
8 moneys appropriated, credited or transferred thereto from any other fund
9 or source. Any unexpended and unencumbered moneys remaining in the
10 permanent child care workforce pay equity fund at the end of a fiscal
11 year shall remain in the permanent child care workforce pay equity fund
12 and shall not be credited to any other fund. Any interest received by
13 the comptroller on moneys on deposit in the fund shall be retained in
14 and become a part of such fund.
15 3. Moneys of the permanent child care workforce pay equity fund shall
16 be made available to the commissioner of the office of children and
17 family services for activities to improve workforce conditions for
18 employees of eligible child care services and programs, and to help
19 ensure eligible programs can operate at high quality and at maximum
20 capacity. Allowable uses of these funds may include, but not be limited
21 to, salary increases, workforce retention bonuses and recruitment bonus-
22 es, indirect costs associated with implementing salary increases and
23 bonuses, costs associated with employee health, and fringe benefits.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD10145-02-5
S. 5533 2
1 Moneys awarded to a program in accordance with this section shall meet
2 the following requirements:
3 (a) No less than seventy-five percent of moneys awarded to a program
4 from the permanent child care workforce pay equity fund shall be used to
5 increase compensation and/or benefits for employees in a direct caregiv-
6 ing role with children;
7 (b) No less than ten percent of moneys awarded to a program from the
8 permanent child care workforce pay equity fund shall be used to increase
9 compensation and/or benefits for employees, administrators, owner-opera-
10 tors, who are not in a direct caregiving role with children; and
11 (c) All remaining moneys awarded to a program from the permanent child
12 care workforce pay equity fund shall be used at program discretion to
13 support the workforce, expand program capacity, and improve program
14 quality.
15 4. The office of children and family services shall submit a report to
16 the governor and the legislature by January thirty-first, two thousand
17 twenty-six and annually thereafter detailing all expenditures awarded to
18 a program from the permanent child care workforce pay equity fund, and
19 the office's priorities for allocating funds from the permanent child
20 care workforce pay equity fund.
21 5. Within one year of the effective date of this section and annually
22 thereafter, the office of children and family services shall establish,
23 by regulation, a minimum compensation scale for the child care workforce
24 that is inclusive of all members of the workforce, not just those in
25 direct caregiving roles with children, and is structured to not inter-
26 fere with existing or future collective bargaining. Such compensation
27 scale shall seek to elevate wages of child care educators to parity with
28 those of similarly situated public school educators and shall be devel-
29 oped in consultation with the department of labor, the state education
30 department, unions representing child care workers and providers,
31 members of the child care advocacy community, and representatives of
32 child care programs of all modalities, from around the state. All
33 participants shall be permitted to review and comment on the draft mini-
34 mum compensation scale, which shall be published annually, no later than
35 December thirty-first in any given calendar year following the initial
36 report.
37 6. To be eligible to be awarded moneys from the permanent child care
38 workforce pay equity fund, a program must accept families paying for
39 child care by means of the New York child care assistance program. In
40 addition, upon implementation of the minimum compensation scale,
41 programs must agree to meet the minimum compensation requirements and
42 agree to reasonable reporting requirements regarding the use of such
43 funds.
44 7. The office of children and family services shall maintain a formula
45 for distributing funds to child care providers which shall give prefer-
46 ence to providers that serve: (i) high numbers of children receiving New
47 York child care assistance program subsidies; (ii) high numbers of high
48 needs children; and (iii) unique populations or that otherwise advance
49 the interest of the program as determined by the department.
50 Such formula for distributing funds shall consider: (i) licensed
51 capacity and enrollment including the ages of the children enrolled and
52 the ages of the children for whom the provider has capacity; provided,
53 however, that enrollment shall be measured by the department using quar-
54 terly enrollment averages or, if deemed appropriate by the department,
55 using enrollment averages that are measured less frequently than quar-
56 terly; (ii) costs associated with employee compensation, including sala-
S. 5533 3
1 ries and benefits; (iii) the number of enrolled children receiving New
2 York child care assistance program subsidies; (iv) the demographics and
3 income of families served, including the number of children enrolled and
4 identified as high needs; (v) the business structure of providers;
5 provided, however, that larger investor-owned providers shall be depri-
6 oritized and only eligible for funding if the commissioner of the office
7 of children and family services personally certifies eligibility for
8 such funds and is provided an assurance as to how such funds will be
9 used to support the child care workforce and that such funds will not
10 serve to enrich private for-profit investors; and (vi) any other factors
11 impacting the cost of providing quality early education and care includ-
12 ing, but not limited to, serving infants and toddlers, providing
13 nonstandard hours of care, and providing care in socially and econom-
14 ically disadvantaged and historically underrepresented communities with
15 shortages of early education and care slots. The office of children and
16 family services shall incorporate geographic equity into the development
17 of the formula and, to the best of their ability, calculate payments
18 such that all funds are distributed to eligible providers each year.
19 § 2. Section 153-k of the social services law is amended by adding a
20 new subdivision 13 to read as follows:
21 13. (a) The office of children and family services shall immediately
22 establish rules and regulations for the distribution of funds from the
23 permanent child care workforce pay equity fund.
24 (b) The office of children and family services shall establish and
25 make widely available a consolidated application for the permanent child
26 care workforce pay equity fund no later than one hundred eighty days
27 after the effective date of this subdivision. Eligibility for the first
28 round of payments from the permanent child care workforce pay equity
29 fund shall be determined within sixty days after the applications are
30 made available, with the first round of payments disbursed within thirty
31 days of eligibility determination. All providers and programs approved
32 for funds pursuant to this subdivision shall be provided payments at
33 least quarterly for so long as the program remains eligible or until
34 funds are exhausted. The office of children and family services shall
35 determine a simple process for programs to recertify eligibility for
36 such funds at an interval of no less than every twenty-four months.
37 § 3. The sum of one billion two hundred million dollars
38 ($1,200,000,000), or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby
39 appropriated to the office of children and family services out of any
40 moneys in the state treasury in the general fund to the credit of the
41 permanent child care workforce pay equity fund account not otherwise
42 appropriated for the purposes of carrying out the provisions of this
43 act. Such moneys shall be payable on the audit and warrant of the state
44 comptroller on vouchers certified or approved by the commissioner of
45 children and family services, or such commissioner's duly designated
46 representative in the manner provided by law.
47 § 4. This act shall take effect immediately; provided, however, that
48 the amendments to section 153-k of the social services law made by
49 section two of this act shall not affect the repeal of such section and
50 shall be deemed repealed therewith.
