ACS Head Explains Cuts, Gets a Hostile Reception

Unions Cite Potential Damage
By David Sims
April 3, 2009

Administration for Children's Services Commissioner John B. Mattingly defended his agency's budget reductions at a City Council hearing March 23, while members of the unions representing ACS workers silently brandished signs stating "LIES" throughout his testimony. "This is a difficult time for all of us who are committed to helping families in this city," Mr. Mattingly told the Council's General Welfare Committee. "It is also going to be an increasingly difficult time for the city's families and children who depend upon us. There is no one in this room who wants to make things any more difficult… but we have run out of options and are forced to make some very tough choices."

Day-Care Shakeup Costing Jobs
The cuts proposed to make up a $62-million budget gap are wide-reaching: seven day-care centers will be closed, with withdrawals of funding to centers with empty seats or other pre-kindergarten funds; 3,500 kindergarten-age children in day-care will be shifted to Department of Education schools; with 567 child-care professionals being laid off and another 360 vacancies being left unfilled.

While ACS holds out hope for Federal stimulus funding to help preserve key programs, it also must conform to "market rate" standards for the compensation of home day-care providers, represented by the United Federation of Teachers, who are mandated a $100-per-week raise by state law, retroactive to 2007. Mr. Mattingly affirmed that a deal was close and that Federal stimulus money would play a part; if the agency does not conform to standards by the end of March, the state has threatened to withdraw its ACS funding.

"These cuts are unacceptable, these layoffs are unacceptable, and there's no way we can sustain them," General Welfare chair Bill De Blasio of Brooklyn warned. Noting that ACS would have 918 fewer child-protective employees in 2010, a cut he called "staggering," he warned that the hit ACS was taking was "proportionately so much greater than any other agency… the work you do is more important and sensitive."

'Shreds the Safety Net'
District Council 37 Local 371 President Faye Moore, who represents many of the workers facing layoffs, said that ACS's budget would "shred the safety net that our city has historically provided, particularly in these harsh economic times we live in now." Beyond the layoffs, she warned, "the proposal eliminates preventative service programs, contracts out case management responsibilities and slashes support services for protective workers." Of particular concern to workers is the increased caseload child-protective staff would incur with the layoffs, despite Mr. Mattingly's insistence that they could still keep caseloads at 12 per worker. He said that if they couldn't, "we will need to seek additional staff," for which he believed the Mayor would provide funding.

Other union members and City Council members gathered outside City Hall before the hearing to register their objections, with District Council 1707 Local 205 President Mabel Everett, who represents day-care center teachers, protesting the move of 5-year-olds to DOE kindergartens. "Where are these children going? I know in Queens we've been going around to schools, and there's no seats," she said. "It's very unfair for a child who lives in Queens to get on the bus to go to Brooklyn. For the parents who are working, who's picking them up at 2:30?"

'Has to Be Stopped'
Council of School Supervisors and Administrators Vice President Randi Herman, who represents day-care directors, agreed. "This is a political matter, but we need to keep in mind that children are neither Republicans or Democrats. Children didn't get us into the financial mess we find ourselves in this city or this country," she said. CSA Vice President Richard Oppenheimer added that "year after year, the day-care system has been recognized for its quality… its dismantlement is unconscionable, and it has to be stopped."

Councilman John Liu of Queens, a candidate for City Comptroller, said the move was not a budget cut, but the result of "gross mismanagement at the DOE and ACS." He said that because of negligence by the agencies in the past, daycare slots had not been treated properly and "because the city botched it, we have some capacity in areas that do not need it, and no capacity in areas that truly need it."

At the hearing, Councilman Lewis Fidler of Brooklyn said that ACS's saving from the kindergarten move, $15 million, was not enough to justify the havoc it would cause, and the increased financial burden on the DOE. "The entire justification of this is that it saves money… how are the taxpayers of the city saving money on this?" he asked. "The intent is not to save city money, it's to reduce our deficit," responded ACS Deputy Commissioner Melanie Hartzog.