Governor Paterson’s initial budget proposed serious cuts to Early Intervention funding and increases in fees to families that have children participating in those vital Early Intervention services. These physical, occupational, speech and other therapies are provided to children from birth through three years old. Governor Paterson proposed as much as a $150 per month surcharge for many children that were receiving these services for free. Thanks to the advocacy of TEACH NYS and the leadership of Senator Carl Kruger, tens of thousands of frum families in New York have been saved from these thousands of dollars in annual fees.
TEACH NYS today thanked Senate Finance Chairman Carl Kruger for leading the effort to successfully kill these fees. “When we approached Senator Kruger about this issue just a few weeks ago, he promised that he would do everything in his power to prevent the state from charging parents for a vital free service,” explained David G. Greenfield, Esq. director and counsel of TEACH NYS. “Thanks to Senator Kruger and his colleagues in the Senate and Assembly, parents will be able to help their children without having to worry about the dramatic cost of these critical Early Intervention services.”
This issue was one of the top three priorities for TEACH NYS because of the financial hardship that many families would have faced dealing with these new costs. What’s more, from an educational standpoint, TEACH NYS was concerned that because of the financial costs many parents would not enroll their children in these Early Intervention programs causing their children to suffer a lifetime of disability.
TEACH NYS was alerted to this issue just a few weeks ago by an ad-hoc committee headed by R’ Moshe Klass of the Jewish Press and R’ Yochanan Shapiro of STEP. These two askanim pulled together a dozen key people in the Early Intervention community for a late-night moetzai shabbos meeting with renowned political strategist and askan David G. Greenfield. After meeting with the group, Mr. Greenfield added the item on the agenda of TEACH NYS in the remaining few weeks of the budget season. Mr. Greenfield had many conversations about the importance of this issue with several key elected officials on his frequent trips to Albany.
What’s more, on his weekly Thursday afternoon “Inside Politics” internet broadcast heard exclusively on Yeshiva World News, Mr. Greenfield cited this issue as one of the top three issues facing the frum community in the budget and encouraged the tens of thousands of listeners to call the Governor and protest this proposed change. Boruch Hashem, by working together, the community has achieved this incredible result.
“I am pleased that we were not only able to ensure that our youngest babies and preschoolers will continue to receive Early Intervention services for free, but also that the thousands of physical, occupational, speech and other therapists who provide these critical services will continue to keep their jobs especially during this difficult economic climate,” said Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn), Chair of the Finance Committee. “I would like to thank TEACH NYS for bringing this important issue to my attention.”
(Yechiel Livyoson – YWN)
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2 Responses
While the work of David Greenfield and TEACH NYS is well known with respect to their efforts on with respect to tuition vouchers and CAP reimbursement to private schools, it is less than clear that the change in this matter is attributable to them.
In fact several providers joined with concerned parents and hired counsel to fight the proposed change. The argument which was presented directly to Governor Patterson’s office, is that the proposed change would be a violation of the federal law, to wit 20 U.S.C. 1432 et seq.
It seems to me that the legal arguement is the stronger of the two, and in all likelihood the true reason why the modification was not made.
Thank you to EVERYONE who worked on this issue on behalf of the Klal. We all know that changing legislation is MAJOR undertaking. So thanks to TEACH NYS for their incredible lobbying, thanks to the lawyers who argued the technical issues, and especially thanks to Senator Kruger who as chairman of the finance committee has DIRECT authority over this legislation. Yasher Koach!