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Jefferson County warns expanded state childcare eligibility may exhaust local funding
Summary
Karen Markham told the Jefferson County Health and Human Services Committee that New York State’s expansion of childcare eligibility has driven caseloads up and could exhaust the county’s childcare block grant by August 2025 absent additional state support.
Karen Markham, commissioner, told the Jefferson County Health and Human Services Committee that expanded eligibility for the New York State Childcare Assistance Program has sharply increased local enrollment and may exhaust the county’s childcare block grant by August 2025. "The need, the funding has not kept up with the need," Markham said.
Markham said the state expanded eligibility effective Oct. 1, 2023, raising the income threshold to 85% of the state median income and adding mandatory payment rules for absences and closures. Those changes increased county cases from 340 on Sept. 30, 2023, to 557 as of May 1, 2025, and raised monthly subsidy claiming to about $450,000 on average. "At the time of this presentation, we were predicting to…
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