Key Findings

• Foundation Aid adjustment: A long-awaited reform of the state’s Foundation Aid formula left overall funding virtually flat, increasing total funds by just 0.5 percent. However, funding was redistributed among districts, with New York City seeing a significant decrease of $322 million, counterbalanced by increases for most other districts across the state.

• Little progress on universal pre-k: Despite legislative proposals to expand Universal Pre-Kindergarten, the Enacted Budget holds funding flat, ensuring that the program will remain far short of universal.

• Child Care Assistance Program: The Enacted Budget adds $400 million in state funds to its childcare subsidy program and requires New York City to spend an additional $275 million in local funding, averting a funding shortfall in the program which would have forced the city to put eligible families on wait lists.

• Child Tax Credit: The Enacted Budget adopts a temporary, two-year enhancement to the State’s Child Tax Credit, rejecting a permanent, more generous legislative proposal.
• Public higher education: Modest funding increases for SUNY will do little to ease growing campus deficits across the system. By contrast, the CUNY system receives stronger year-over-year funding growth.