Many child care advocates are frustrated as they head into the Albany "offseason" feeling like there is not only little to show for this year’s legislative session, but a sense of regression in the state’s fight to address the child care crisis. It comes as several counties upstate have had to create waitlists or close enrollment as emergency funding for the state’s child care assistance program has yet to fully kick in, and some experts say it may not provide enough of a boost to get enrollment reopened in some counties.

“The potential for backsliding feels a little bit more real,” Dede Hill, director of policy at the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy said of the end of this session compared to the summer of 2024, when advocates geared up to lobby Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign a trio of bills largely intended to modernize eligibility requirements.

Hill identified that emergency infusion of funding for the voucher program reached during budget negotiations as the major legislative achievement for 2025.

“That was a huge win given that we started negotiations with no new funding for child care assistance,” she said.

The fact that a funding crisis was imminent in New York City became clear early in the year and it soon was apparent that several upstate counties were also in trouble. Hochul and state lawmakers were successful in providing an additional $350 million for New York City and $50 million for upstate, but experts like Hill say it’s a mark of the potential for backsliding that the money was needed to address a shortfall caused by the state expanding enrollment in recent years rather than toward meaningful steps forward.

In addition to the assistance for the voucher program, the state budget also provided funding to improve the physical condition of child care facilities in the state as well as an expanded child tax credit.

With guidance for disbursement of the voucher funds only being released late last week, the money has far from solved the problem even for this year.

“We still have more than 15 counties around New York state that are running waitlists or have closes enrollment all together,” Hill said.

What’s more, Hill argued that some counties may be reluctant to take on additional families in response to a one-time shot in the arm that can only be used for expenses that exceed existing funding allocations and can only be used this year.

“Counties are going to be really concerned about building out their caseloads without assurance they will be funded at the same level next year,” she said.

What counties can expect next year is partly dependent on what becomes of Hochul’s New York Coalition for Child Care, tasked in the state budget with finding funding streams for Universal Child Care.

Assemblymember Sarah Clark wants to see those recommendations this fall.

“There’s going to be a lot of pressure on that group, and the governor and her team to ensure that we are heading into the budget with eyes wide open and with a plan,” she said.

Clark said the pressure for a long-term solution to funding both the program and the child care work force is made even more acute by the fact that the state has had to turn off the tap in some cases on families who were already deemed eligible under the expansion of the program.

“If we don’t figure out a path forward to fully fund what we need to fund, this is going to be an issue every year that is really going to put families in jeopardy of losing important child care support,” she said.

Spectrum News 1 has reached out to the state Office of Children and Family Services, but has not yet received a response.