Bloomberg Rejects Appeal to Restore Priority 7 Vouchers
Wednesday, a group of Council Members leading the fight to restore Priority 7 vouchers had a rare meeting with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and several of his top aides to discuss the fate of the Priority 7 program. Priority 7 is a lifeline for thousands of this city’s neediest families, ensuring that children are provided safe, professional childcare. And, since April of this year, Council Members David Greenfield, Lew Fidler, Letitia James, Brad Lander and Stephen Levin have advocated vociferously, both publicly and privately, to save this vital program. Those Councilmembers were joined today by Council Finance Chairman Domenic M. Recchia, Jr. in their meeting with the Mayor.
“We made an incredibly compelling case today as to why Priority 7 vouchers should be saved and how these cuts disproportionately impact the Orthodox Jewish community,” explained Councilman David Greenfield. “Unfortunately, the Mayor did not agree with us.”
In recent years, Priority 7, which primarily benefits Orthodox Jewish families, has become the default option for reducing the Administration for Children’s Services’ budget shortfall. But, while other programs are recommended for funding reductions, Priority 7 is consistently, completely eliminated at the expense of a single, exceptionally needy community. In fact, by ACS’s own admission, over 70% of children in Orthodox neighborhoods like Boro Park and Williamsburg are eligible for free childcare; however, only a fraction of those needy children actually receive it. For years, the waiting list for the Priority 7 program, which is slated to end on December 31, 2010, remained lengthy.
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“We are very disappointed that the Mayor did not agree to restore Priority 7 vouchers — so essential for thousands of families — even though we presented him with an extremely reasonable proposal that would reduce funding dramatically each year going forward,” said Councilman Lander. “On the last day of Hanukkah, we were hoping for better.”
“Over the past year, Council Members Greenfield, James, Fidler, Lander, Recchia and I have worked tirelessly to advocate for the preservation of Priority 7 vouchers,” noted Councilman Levin. “The loss of Priority 7 vouchers would have a devastating effect on the communities we represent. Today, we made a highly persuasive case to the Mayor, detailing exactly how devastating the loss of the program would be. All of us — the elected officials and the community — need to continue to collectively press the Administration to continue Priority 7 vouchers.”
At today’s meeting, the Council Members hand-delivered over 15,500 letters from their constituents, in addition to the over 12,000 letters that were delivered in June, pleading with the Mayor to save Priority 7. The Council Members even offered a compromise that was pre-approved by the majority of yeshiva leaders, to phase out the program by cutting it 20% each year for the next five years. The mayor said he would consider the compromise. However, in light of the $1.6 billion in current mid-year budget cuts and several billion dollars in planned cuts for next year, he didn’t think that Priority 7 would be restored.
“It is simply unacceptable that the City is ending the Priority 7 program,” said Councilman Greenfield. “My colleagues and I have done everything in our power to restore these vouchers, including securing this rare personal meeting with Mayor Bloomberg. To be clear, the battle is not over. We will continue to fight for Priority 7, and for the families and mosdos that will be gravely hurt by the loss of this program.”
chaim
for over 40 years the zisman brothers have made millions of dollars off of this day care center, which a doin torah by rabbi dvorkin detrmined the funds should go to CH moisdois.
not one penny over the years has gone to anyone but to the zismans.
the last pepole i would feel bad for will be the zismans.
michush
Call 718-300-3299 in order to help save your voucher
to # 1
hence the name Moisdois day care.
i think Zakai instead of falling for all the old junk from the past vadd should look into this fiasco.
he will need to talk to vadd memebers from before the Spilman days to find out.
anyway i dont thik tamir will do anything becuse zisman and sperlin are partners in many projetcs.
TRUTH
to # 1 and 3
must pepole remeber that fight.
the day care center was built for all moisdas, but Zisman was the Builder of the nuiduing and somehow farnegled the whole moisad. a Din Torah with all moisdois versus Zisman resulted with Zisman loosing.
of cource he never gave anyone a penny. and as a mater of fact he never even lived in CH.
but i bilive the time has come that the new Vadd look into this and perhaps start making some of this money.
this is in adtion to the Zismans being on the board of ULY siting on over $10.000.000, (YES TEN MILLION) and not giving anyone a chesbon, or giving out any of the funds.
BUT LIKE # 3 SAID. TAMIR WILL NEVER DO ANYTHING BECUSE THE ZISMANS ARE PARTNERS WITH SPERLINS AND MAMLAMUDS
to 1,3 and 4
This is not the issue at hand and not the time for you to vent about this, if the priority 7 is not restored, there will be no day care center. The bottom line is that hundreds of families in our community that benefited from the day care will now be out in the cold.
Anyone that has any influence anywhere, please get involved and try to save this day care center.
to #1, 3 and 4
Two thousand children are scheduled to be out of school, and you hijack the story to bring up a Machloikes from 30 years ago. – Shame on you!
Please stick to the issue at hand and ker a velt that that the vouchers are restored.
to # 6
it IS connected. think about all the money being taken from the community by the Zismans. duh.
it is connected because the last time this voucher thing was going to happen the other site had a article how chanina saved the day, (which was a complete lie)
if the vadd hakall was doing there job now and in the past we would of had other monies flowing in. but instead they are only there for personal gain. look at all the buildungs the sperlins own and manage which they got in the past 10 years from chanina being in the Vadd.
and the sad part is, is that tamir is falling into the trap.
Scared parent
As a mother with two kids in Mosdoth daycare, I am petrified about what is about to happen.
Community leaders, please do all you can to make sure the vouchers are restored.
become public schools.....
its time to threaten bloomberg that if he doesnt reinstate the vouchers then we will not have enough funds to run our schools and we will have no choice but to either shut down or become public schools in which case he would have to fund us anyways and it would cost much more – its not fair that because of our religion we have to become “private” schools and therefor forego all the funding that other races get we arent fancy private schools rolling in money maybe if we all (not just chabad but all frum schools) got together and made such a case where we put them in a catch 22 situation they would be a little more understanding……
just an idea from a regular person – i may be wrong
kohen
what was the mayor saying the other day about “tikkun olam”?
Something concrete.
We need to do what satmar did to obtain their school buildings years ago… One day all the residents in williamsburg signed up to the public school system for ALL their kids…. what resulted was that there was definitely not enough room for the kids to go to public school system, and the government decided to give satmar what it wanted,,,,
mother
Ask the Sperlins to sponsor u?
Ask Blumberg to cover
Someone should ask Blumberg If he can personaly pay for needy children.
Charter Schools
TO #9
Won’t work. Kathy Black is now in charge of NY Education. She is closing down Public Schools and opening Charter School’s instead.
We’d have to become Charter Schools to get the funding.
nebach...
the zismans dont even live in the shchuna…what gall!
to add to all, zismans daughter was murderd by her husband…anyone recall that?
Here-s A Plan that COULD work
Everyone should enroll all their kids in public schools for just one day. This would completely overwhelm the system and force the government to understand that $7000 to a private school is a bargain compared to the estimated $12000 per year it costs the city per child in public School
Agree with no. 9
what no.9 said is very true.If we threaten to become public school it would cost them much more.They would actually be scared if we’d go public. it’s definately something to think about.
Shoshana
to #9 it’s called separation of church and state.
About Bloomberg, however, now I’m even happier I voted for Thompson even if he lost.
shayna
who are the zismans and what do they have to do with priority 6?