Chair Lee Delivers Opening Statement on the ACS Budget
Chair Linda Lee welcomes attendees to day three of the FY27 Executive Budget Hearings and provides an overview of the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) proposed $3.51 billion budget, highlighting headcount vacancies and the Raise the Age Act.
Good morning and welcome to day three of the fiscal FY27 Executive Budget Hearings.
I'm Councilmember Linda Lee, and today's hearings will begin with the Administration for Children's Services, followed by Department of Youth and Community Development, and the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.
I'm pleased to be joined by my colleague and dear friend, Councilmember Althea Stevens, Chair of the Committee on Children and Youth.
And today we have been joined by Councilmember Morte, Councilmember Shulman, Councilmember Epstein, Councilmember Joseph, Councilmember Wong, and Councilmember Deputy Speaker Williams is on Zoom.
Welcome, Commissioner Rebecca Jones Gaston.
Week two, or day seven, rather, day six to you and your team, and of course your amazing team.
Thank you all for joining us today to answer our questions.
On May 12th, 2026, the administration released the executive financial plan for fiscal 2026 to 2030 with a proposed FY27 budget of 124.7 billion dollars.
The administration for children's services proposed fiscal FY27 budget of 3.51 billion dollars represents 2.7% of the administration's proposed FY27 budget in the executive plan.
And this is an increase of $89.6 million dollars or 2.6% from the $3.42 billion originally budgeted in the FY27 preliminary plan.
This increase results from several actions, including additional funding added for child care vouchers, foster care, staffing across the agency, and a baselining of the Promise NYC program.
As of April 2026, ACS's headcount was 562 less than their FY26 budgeted headcount.
In the council's preliminary budget response, we called on the mayor to apply for the state waiver that would allow the city to apply for reimbursement of its expenditures across fiscal 2019 to 2026, related to the implementation of the state's Raise the Age Act.