Who’s In Hochul’s Mystery Universal Child Care Coalition?

The coalition is “a bit of a mystery,” said Pete Nabozny, director of policy at the Children’s Agenda, a Rochester-based advocacy group. When advocates asked the governor’s office over the summer about what was happening with the group, he said, the response they got was, “have you seen what’s going on with the federal government? We’re figuring out this other stuff.”

Hochul’s office said that members of the coalition have held meetings. A spokesperson declined to say who they are or when they have met, but said the office would share more in advance of the governor’s State of the State address in January.

“We are continuing to collaborate with partners inside and outside of government to create a plan of action for universally affordable child care statewide,” said Hochul spokesperson Nicolette Simmonds.

As she looks to next year’s gubernatorial election, Hochul has made child care one of her top issues. She calls herself the state’s “first mom governor” and “a poster child for the child care crisis,” often describing how she had to quit her job to take care of her first child.

It’s not all talk: She has dramatically increased the state’s investment in child care subsidies for low and middle-income parents. 

Still, counties across the state have recently had to turn eligible parents away from that program due to a lack of funding. Hochul has also rejected proposals by the legislature to increase child care spending, including to create a child care workforce fund and expand universal pre-K.

She’s facing calls to do more, as some other Democratic leaders take bolder steps. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced plans to establish universal free child care last month. New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is campaigning to do the same, naming the issue his top priority in last week’s debate.

Standing by Mamdani at an event last week, Hochul doubled down on her support for universal child care.

“I’ve had conversations with Assemblymember Mamdani about how we can get to universal child care,” Hochul said. “I believe we can. I believe we have to have the will to do this.”

But she’s been thin on the specifics.

Instead, during state budget negotiations this year, she proposed setting up the so-called “New York Coalition on Child Care” to find a way to pay for the program.

Legislators tried to spell out the details of the coalition — like who would be in it and when its deadline to form ideas would be — but were rebuffed.

“We tried very hard to put some teeth into this coalition to ensure that we would have something to work with before this year’s budget,” Clark said, but “the governor really wanted this to be her coalition and not have any extra layers of structure put on it from the legislature. So we put it in her hands.”

None of the coalition’s $1 million appropriation has been spent, a Division of the Budget spokesperson told New York Focus, despite the governor’s office’s claim that it has been meeting. The advisory body does not appear to be covered by the state transparency law that would require its meetings to be open to the public.