B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces 13,000 More Kids Are Now in Affordable Childcare Following Her Record Investments Statewide

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced 13,000 more kids across New York are now enrolled in high-quality, affordable childcare following her record investments statewide - with a total of approximately 183,000 kids now enrolled in the State's Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). This major initiative has now enabled 43 counties across the state to expand childcare access in their communities through CCAP. This includes 26 counties that have been able to clear their waitlists or were previously denying new applicants into the program.

B-ROLL of the Governor Hochul visiting children at JCC of Greater Buffalo is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good afternoon, everyone. Really proud to be back here at the JCC. It's been many, many visits here for various occasions, but this is particularly special. It's also great to be back home in Buffalo, an area, a street that I know well. Everyone knows Delaware Avenue. It's a beautiful, beautiful reminder of the glory days of Buffalo. For those who do not know, there was one time Buffalo had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world, and a lot of them lived along these beautiful mansions. So we're delighted to see the JCC prospering so well here back in the town where I intentionally came back to raise my own children.

And I'm delighted to be here with my Commissioner of the Office of Children and Family Services, DaMia Harris-Madden. Let's acknowledge her as well. Where is she? Thank you very much. Patty Simonson, the CEO of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Buffalo. Mark Horowitz, who you'll be hearing from after me, the Chief Operating Officer here, and Anna Bilinska the Administrative Assistant.

So this is an announcement that's very close to my heart. What a place to do it. This is such a special place. Families from Buffalo, Amherst, Williamsville - come from all over Western New York here. And I just had some fun. Best part of my day was having a chance to play with the kids, and I always feel bad having to leave a little four-year-old. Got a four-year-old granddaughter, so it's an age group that I really relate to and they bring me such happiness. So that's the best part of my day when they put me with kids and seniors, then I'm good.

And I'm really proud to share some announcement here that - something that's troubled a lot of families and institutions and providers and county leaders like County Executive Mark Poloncarz, that there have been long wait lists for the childcare services that we know how essential they are. But I'm proud to announce that the childcare wait list in Erie County has gone cleared. One year ago, there were a thousand children - just a year ago, a thousand children on that wait list - and now there's zero. That means more children now have access to affordable childcare, and for their families, that's life-changing.

But it's not just here in Erie County. We're making this progress for families all across the state, and thanks to our investments, 43 counties across New York are expanding childcare access this year, and up until now, a lot of them have struggled with their wait lists. Again, it's a family - parents have a job to go to, and they need to be able to have plans in place, but then they get on a wait list, and they have no idea how long it's going to take.

And so many times the waitlists were so long they stopped taking applications. So we changed that for thousands and thousands of families. As of today, we're now admitting 13,000 more kids into our childcare assistance program. That means we now have a total of 183,000 children enrolled, nearly triple the number of when I took office. And it's saving families up to $20,000 per child per year. Let me say that again, $20,000 per child per year, and that adds up. For the nearly 1,000 children we just took off the wait list in Erie County, that's $20 million in savings for Western New York families. That's real money.

And how do we do it? Simple. We invested State dollars. We invested $1.2 billion in the childcare assistance program, and the good news is we expanded eligibility to serve even more families. We raised the income limit for a family of four. When I first became Governor, only families that earned up to $55,000 or less were eligible. We raised that to $116,000. We could help middle-class families as well.

And here's the best part. For families in the program, their out-of-pocket cost for childcare is capped at $15 a week. Fifteen dollars. That's extraordinary. That's just one more way we're working to lower costs for families all across New York. We're seeing the same progress in New York City too. Thanks to our investment, Mayor Mamdani is announcing more than 10,000 children are coming off the city's childcare waitlist and getting access to almost free childcare.

So whether you live in New York City or Buffalo, we're making sure that families get the affordable childcare that they need. Because I know those hard choices. People have to think about: Do they turn down a job offer? Will they be able to go back to school? Will the numbers add up when they're paying the bills at the end of the month? I know what it's like. I've sat at the kitchen table with a big stack of bills early in my career and I know what it's like. It's been hard, and I know families in Western New York struggle.

When they know they can come to a place like this, so loving and so nurturing, a system that supports them with a beautiful many - they have swim lessons, too. They have swim lessons here and a lot of great programs that really puts the child first. And you know what that does for parents? It just lifts off such a burden. The anxiety that parents have when their children leave them and go off to a place - whether it's preschool, daycare, wherever they're going - there's a lot of stress. I've lived that stress.

So when I mention how important this is to me and my family that you have this available. And I want to thank everybody, and that's why announcing a program that now serves one hundred and eighty thousand children, saving families this much money makes a real difference. So proud of what we've done here. We're doing it all over the State of New York, and we're not going to stop until every single parent can get the care that they need and they can afford. That's how we do it in New York. Thank you very much. And I want to call up Mark Horowitz to talk about what this means to the JCC program here.