🍎 citymeetings.nyc #29
Early Childhood Centers, Public Health Preparedness, NYPD & the POST Act, Foster Care
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This week's highlights are from hearings on:
- Early childhood care center closures
- Public health emergency preparedness
- NYPD's implementation of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act
- NYC's foster care system
For a complete listing of published meetings, visit https://citymeetings.nyc.
Hearing on early childhood care center closures
Ingrid Matias Chungata from Nuestros Niños, one of the centers targeted for closure, gave testimony at last week's hearing.
NYC recently planned the closure of five early childhood education centers and then reversed the decision after community backlash led the DOE to grant one-year extensions.
This was an oversight hearing focused on early childhood care center closures, especially the cases cited above.
- Five early childhood care centers were informed their leases would be terminated less than 24 hours before school year applications opened, affecting nearly 300 children. Link
- NYC Public Schools supports about 4K sites across 1K vendors. The five centers considered for closure are part of 60 leased sites inherited from ACS. Link
- DOE based closure decisions on lease expiration dates, community saturation, three-year utilization records, and lease terms. Link
- NYC's early childhood education system currently has 30K vacant seats, while some neighborhoods face waitlists due to demand exceeding capacity. Link
- Providers have been unable to submit invoices since September, with approximately $1M in services provided without payment. Link
- Current contract mechanisms allow programs to draw down 75% of their contract value regardless of enrollment, which DOE officials call unsustainable for public funds management. Link
- Ingrid Matias Chungata of Nuestros Niños testified that their savings were depleted due to payment delays, forcing them to take out a loan for the first time and causing her significant personal stress. Link
- Brooklyn Borough President Reynoso disputed DOE claims about Nuestros Niños enrollment, stating it exceeds 76% capacity, and contested lease figures after speaking directly with the landlord. Link
- Applications for 3-K programs increased by 27% from 2021 to 2024. Children using low-income childcare vouchers increased 82% in early 2025 compared to 2024. Link
- Mayor Adams' FY2026 preliminary budget omits $197M for DOE early childhood programs and $25M for Promise NYC programming. Link
- The DOE is developing a new payment system to improve turnaround time and enable providers to track payment status. Link
Hearing on public health emergency preparedness
Dr. Michelle Morse from DOHMH gave testimony at last week's hearing.
This hearing was about detecting, preventing, and responding to public health emergencies in NYC. Federal changes and funding cuts were a major point of discussion.
- A sample of DOHMH by the numbers, annually: Link
- Employs over 7K people.
- Inspects over 30K food service locations
- Distributes over 2.5MM pediatric vaccine doses
- Distributes over 300K naloxone kits and 54K fentanyl test strips.
- Provides over 20K families with home visiting nurses, doulas, and community health workers
- Fields calls from over 8K people at the NYC Abortion Access Hub.
- NYC's disease surveillance system monitors over 100 infectious diseases through mandatory reporting. Link
- Most reports are received electronically within 24 hours.
- High-consequence diseases require immediate phone notification.
- Since 2022, 47 wild birds in NYC have been infected with H5N1 (bird flu), with 7 such cases in 2025. Link
- NYC experienced a 28% increase in tuberculosis cases from 2022 to 2023, with growing concern about drug-resistant TB strains that doubled during this period. Link
- The rate of measles vaccination in NYC has declined from 94% among the 2018 birth cohort to 81% for the 2022 birth cohort at 24 months. Link
- In February 2019, NYC's matching funds for Article 6 were reduced from 36% to 20%, resulting in an annual loss of upwards of $90 million in state public health funding, making NYC the only local jurisdiction to experience such a cut. Link
- ~20% of DOHMH's budget (~$600 million) comes from federal funding. Roughly 80% of the disease control division's funding is from federal sources. Link
- Seven CDC staff members assigned to work with DOHMH were recently fired. Link
- Communication with the CDC has been limited with periods of complete halts, while approximately 1,300 people were fired from the agency. Link
- Dr. Morse expressed concern about potential changes to vaccination schedules under RFK Jr., emphasizing that DOHMH will continue to make decisions based on science and data. Link
Hearing on NYPD Surveillance Technology and POST Act Oversight
Sergio De La Pava from New York County Defender Services gave testimony at last week's hearing.
This hearing examining the NYPD's implementation of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act.
The POST Act requires NYPD to publish Impact and Use Policies (IUPs) for surveillance technologies deployed by the department, including information on their capabilities, data collection practices, and retention policies.
- NYPD has published 37 IUPs and amended them 16 times since 2020 to reflect policy changes, new deployments of technology, or correct errors. Link
- DOI Commissioner Strauber reported that NYPD groups distinct technologies under single IUPs, potentially shielding them from public scrutiny, contrary to POST Act requirements. Link
- NYPD drone usage has increased significantly, with over 4,000 flight missions in 2023, including 2,300+ priority calls for missing persons, ShotSpotter alerts, and crimes-in-progress. Link
- NYPD uses three AI technologies: ShotSpotter, Patternizer, and facial recognition, though they currently don't use AI for predictive policing. Link
- Brooklyn Defender Services testified that ShotSpotter has an 84% failure rate in detecting gunshots, with over 99% of alerts failing to result in gun recovery, noting sensors are predominantly in Black and Latino neighborhoods. Link
- NYPD testified that facial recognition is used only as an investigative lead with multiple human reviews, not as a sole basis for arrest. Link
- NYPD's local DNA database contains 82,000 profiles, with 60-70% having prior convictions, leaving potentially 30% without convictions. Link
- Legal Aid Society testified they found cases where drone deployment reports weren't completed and video wasn't preserved, contradicting NYPD claims. Link
- New York County Defender Services recounted how NYPD used facial recognition to target a BLM protest leader, deploying 24 vehicles, drones, and a helicopter while falsely claiming they had an arrest warrant. Link
- CM Ayala shared a story about an innocent 18-year-old undocumented immigrant wrongly detained at Rikers Island and later released to ICE. Link
- Legal Aid Society has fought for four years to access NYPD surveillance contracts hidden for over a decade, receiving only heavily redacted documents. Link
Hearing on NYC Foster Care System Evaluation
Foster parents Fernando Canteli de Castro and Everson Ladson gave testimony at last week's hearing.
This was an oversight hearing evaluating NYC's foster care system and featured testimony from ACS and various stakeholders: foster parents, advocates, and people with experience in the system.
- NYC's foster care population has decreased from 13,000 a decade ago to approximately 6,500 children currently, down from nearly 40,000 in the late 1990s. Link
- The Enhanced Family Foster Care model merges regular family foster care and therapeutic foster care, adding specialized behavioral specialists to every case planning team. Link
- About 45% of children in foster care are placed with family members or close family friends in kinship arrangements, with less than 10% in residential placements. Link
- 88% of children and youth in foster care did not experience a placement change in the last fiscal year, excluding those who moved to kin or unified with siblings. Link
- The Fair Futures program has expanded to provide coaching and tutoring support to youth in foster care up to age 26, benefiting over 4,000 youth in 2024, with 92% of those coached for more than 90 days achieving at least three positive outcome goals. Link
- ACS receives approximately $1.35 billion in federal funds annually, with about $310 million from Title IV-E, raising concerns about the impact of potential federal funding freezes or reductions. Link
- Foster care agencies face a crisis with rising liability insurance costs, prompting ACS to advocate at the state level and work with providers on budget modifications. Link
- Foster parents reported experiencing a five-month delay in receiving medical insurance cards for their foster children, causing difficulties in accessing necessary care. Link
- Foster parents testified about facing transportation challenges, particularly during the 10-day waiting period for school bus services, with ACS implementing a reimbursement pathway that has provided over $800,000 in transportation support. Link
- LGBTQ foster parents testified about experiencing discrimination, with one family reporting their foster home was being closed because it was deemed "not needed," despite ACS's efforts to recruit more LGBTQ foster parents. Link
- A foster parent described how their foster daughter was forced to interact with someone who had a restraining order against her during a supervised visit, with the child's resulting distress being dismissed by the case worker. Link
- The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem testified that foster care agencies receive over $600 million in funding from ACS but lack accessible, audited data on contracts and outcomes. Link
- The Ali Forney Center testified that ACS policy related to LGBTQ inclusion in foster care has not been updated since 2012, despite recent collaborations to establish LGBTQIA point people and best practice trainings. Link
Thanks for reading!
Comments, questions, or feedback? Reply to this email or shoot me a note at vikram@citymeetings.nyc