Councilman David G. Greenfield thanked Mayor de Blasio today for keeping his promise and putting in $12.6 million for Priority 5 vouchers in his executive budget. The administration notified Council Members and other key stakeholders this morning about the addition to the Mayor’s proposed budget.

“I applaud Mayor de Blasio for keeping his commitment to the Orthodox Jewish community by restoring Priority 5 after-school vouchers in this year’s budget. I am pleased that these funds are being baselined so that we won’t have to fight about this every year. Thanks to the Mayor, we can now move on to the other key issues that the yeshiva community faces and have honest conversations. Of course, I also want to thank Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito for her unequivocal support and including these vouchers in the Council’s response to the Mayor last month,” said Councilman Greenfield.

While Mayor de Blasio campaigned on restorations to Priority 5 & 7 vouchers and promised after he was elected that they would be restored, until today this had not been the case. Last year, the Mayor did not include the funding in his budget—it was only after the Council protested that the Mayor agreed to the Council’s compromise to add $12 million to the final budget. This year, in the first draft of his budget, the funding for Priority 5 was noticeably absent. Greenfield called on the Mayor to restore these funds in this year’s budget immediately after it was released. The Council included these vouchers as an item that they wanted to be restored in their budget response to the Mayor and yesterday Greenfield sent the Mayor a friendly reminder that the community expected the funds for Priority 5 to be in the budget.

Still outstanding with this administration are the issues of funding for Priority 7 vouchers—no new funds have been added—and conversations regarding full day and half-day Universal Pre-K. They are both areas where the yeshiva community is unhappy with the lack of flexibility for full day UPK and the lack of commitment to half-day slots, which are vital for dozens of yeshivas.

“Today we thank the Mayor for remembering working families who rely on Priority 5 after-school vouchers. The nature of government is that we will continue to have conversations about issues that are important to him and to us. However, by keeping his word on Priority 5 vouchers, we trust that we can continue to have conversations with the Mayor about other key issues for the yeshiva community,” said Councilman Greenfield.

(YWN Desk – NYC)