NYC starts making back payments to child care centers still slated for closure

Staff at three nonprofit child care centers facing a sudden, city-imposed shutdown at the end of the school year said Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has started to make a dent in the debts New York City owes them while holding firm on the impending closures.

Nuestros Niños in Williamsburg received $129,000 of the nearly $1 million the city owed the facility, according to executive director Ingrid Matias Chungata. That payment, owed for June of last year, came the same day Gothamist reported the city was on the hook for millions of dollars in payments to the three centers.

The city has been persistently behind on payments to nonprofit service providers, and its record has grown worse under Adams. Like child care, it’s an area of vulnerability for the mayor, who made solving the delays a joint priority with city Comptroller and now-mayoral challenger Brad Lander.

“It’s so awful,” Matias Chungata said. “So many other nonprofits are facing these issues.”

The Grand Street Settlement — which runs the Bushwick Family Center, one of the sites slated to lose its lease — said the city approved more than $601,000 in outstanding payments for the fiscal year ending in 2024 after Gothamist reported on the city’s debt. But the city has yet to pay more than $527,000 in contracts to the Bushwick facility, according to the organization’s finance staff.

The Fort Greene Council, another center set to close, said it had been paid just over $100,000 for July of last year. The organization was still waiting on more than $500,000 in unpaid reimbursements since 2020, according to Naquan Taitt, the organization’s controller.

The city has not responded to repeated requests for comment about what caused the payment delays and whether officials had reconsidered renewing the centers’ leases.

Adams and Lander have both vowed to improve the city’s payment timelines. At the start of their terms, they convened what they called a “joint task force to get nonprofits paid on time.” The group recommended creating a timeline for all procurements and payments, according to Susan Stamler, executive director of United Neighborhood Houses and a member of the task force.

“Since then, the Adams administration has not prioritized implementing those recommendations,” she said. “This has left nonprofits in the same — or in some cases a worse — situation with regards to late payments.”

The administration has argued that the centers scheduled to close have been operating below capacity, but some of the providers have said the city’s numbers are wrong.

Supporters of Nuestros Niños — where staff says class rosters show 96 students, compared to the city’s count of four — plan to hold a rally on the steps of City Hall opposing the closure on Thursday. The Bushwick Family Center is set to open its doors next week to other elected officials and the press to show the facility does not have enrollment issues.

Robert Cordero, executive director of Grand Street Settlement, said the city’s decision to end its lease has had a “dire” impact on students, families and staff.

"Since we have full enrollment, this is purely a decision about real estate, and finalizing a long-term lease in the high-need area of Bushwick, Brooklyn, should be the goal for the city and Grand Street,” he said.

The city’s commitment to fully funding child care has been a prominent talking point for candidates challenging Adams in the Democratic mayoral primary. Several of those challengers are members of the state Legislature and had the opportunity to grill Adams on the city’s budget priorities during a hearing in Albany on Tuesday.

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani of Queens, one of Adams’ challengers, pressed the mayor about the closures of five child care centers. He cited Gothamist’s reporting about the “panic mode” they triggered for parents left scrambling to find alternatives.

Adams continued to attribute the planned shutdowns to low enrollment in the targeted programs.

“We had to come in, realign the seats to make sure tax dollars were being paid accordingly,” he said, noting that when he first took office, taxpayers were funding 30,000 vacant child care seats and half-enrolled centers.

“These facilities are at 70% enrollment, 75% at least, and you're proposing closing them,” said Mamdani, who had three minutes to question the mayor. “How do you explain that?”

“Well, I would,” Adams said as a buzzer sounded, “but I don't have time.”