Child care advocates say they are disappointed with what was included in the final enacted state budget, and say it doesn't address the depths of the crisis here in New York.

Meanwhile, they are looking ahead thanks in part to a long-awaited report from New York’s Child Care Availability Task Force released last month that offers recommendations which align with many priorities advocates are pushing. Some are already supported by legislation and one significant recommendation was already vetoed by Governor Kathy Hochul last year.

Eduardo Hernandez, organizer for the Alliance for Quality Education, told Spectrum News 1 that with the report in hand, he was encouraged to see a permanent line of funding to support the child care workforce topping the list of recommendations.

“They’re stuck, and they have to make a decision between caring for their children adequately and going to work,” he said of parents. “Nobody questions the investment the state puts into public education from kindergarten through high school and that comes out of our tax money and it’s something we all willingly do."

Another priority that is underlined in the report is a policy that would decouple child care assistance to a parent’s hours of work. A decoupling bill that passed last session but was vetoed by the governor on fiscal grounds didn’t make it into the final enacted state budget.

“Right now people are limited to when they can access childcare through state subsidies, they have a certain timeframe, a half hour before they start working and a half hour after,” he said.

Advocates like Gregory Brender of the Daycare Council of New York says the current rule, as well as the availability of child care during off hours, excludes parents in the gig economy and those who work other jobs with irregular schedules.

“People don’t have 9-5 schedules anymore,” he said. “So expecting that their children can only be in child care if they are working those specific hours excludes so many working parents.”

Assemblymember Sarah Clark says another one of her priorities, also highlighted in the report, is a study to implement an estimation that would establish a “true cost” of child care.

“We need to get the study done, we need to understand the true cost of child care in our state, stop working on old market rates that don’t really capture what we need to do to invest in this system, invest in our workforce, invest in our providers,” she said.

Dede Hill, director of policy at the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, insists there is still time to act on items tied to legislation this session.

“While we are really disappointed the report didn’t come out before budget to inform budget negotiations as it was intended to do, we are thrilled that we have the report now and we are hoping it will inform these last weeks of [session],” she said.