Mayor Zohran Mamdani's flagship universal childcare program faces an embarrassing debut, providers contracted to open classrooms on September 10 say the city has not sent the advance payments they need to hire staff, buy supplies, or even fix the plumbing.
Across Queens, Staten Island, and Brooklyn, directors of small daycare centers told the New York Post they are draining personal savings, maxing out credit lines, delaying staff paychecks, and skipping their own salaries to keep doors open, all while City Hall and the Comptroller's office trade blame over unregistered contracts.
The result: the city's 2-K, 3-K, and pre-K programs, the centerpiece of Mamdani's 2025 campaign, risk opening without teachers, without supplies, and without the trust of the very operators the system depends on.
Adrienne Bond, director of Quick Start Daycare Center in Queens, told the Post she is waiting on roughly $400,000 from the city. She has already spent $400 of her own money, pulled $35,000 from a private after-school program to cover expenses, and delayed two staff paychecks. She is pleading with the city for an interest-free bridge loan, but the Department of Education's own backlog is holding that up, too.
Bond put the stakes plainly:
"If we do open up on the first day of school, I won't have staff."
On Staten Island, Lori Cangiolose of The Play Group Experience said she is still waiting on a $160,000 advance and has spent $800 out of her personal bank account to prepare for September. A colleague, she said, paid $1,800 out of pocket just to fix a toilet so the center could pass inspection.
Cangiolose told the Post:
"We received zero funding that we usually receive in August to get us through to open."
In Park Slope, Brooklyn, Olena Olson of Let's Play & Learn Park is waiting on $300,000 in advance payments for her 3-K and pre-K programs. She is leaning on a $60,000 line of credit, collecting tuition from a private 2-K class, and forgoing her own salary to cover staff and building costs. Olson said she can survive September, but October is another story.
"I will be OK for September if it takes that long. But come October, if I don't have either the loan or the advanced payment, then I don't even want to think about it."
One Queens childcare owner, who asked not to be identified, said the city awarded her a new 2-K class but will not send money to operate it until November. She received less than half of the five-figure bridge loan she requested. She has already tapped her personal bank accounts and her 401(k).
"I'm done, somebody needs to shine a light on what's going on in this place because it's an absolute disaster."
That is not the voice of a disgruntled bureaucrat. It is the voice of a small-business owner who signed a contract with the city and got nothing in return, not even a clear timeline.
The Department of Education blamed the Comptroller's office for not registering provider contracts, a required step before payments can be processed. City Comptroller Mark Levine fired back that the DOE had never shared the contracts in the first place. His office said it had not received a single 2-K contract as of Friday.
Levine issued a statement that did not mince words:
"The start of the school year is not an unexpected event. The city knew these contracts needed to be approved by now, and failing to get them done on time risks setting back our affordability agenda."
He added that these are small providers with "little financial cushion," and that forcing them to care for children without contracts or payment "puts enormous strain on these organizations." The bureaucratic finger-pointing is a familiar pattern for an administration that has faced a string of self-inflicted controversies, including an ethics complaint accusing Mamdani of using city resources to boost Democratic candidates.
An anonymous DOE insider offered a blunter assessment of the administration's capacity:
"New York City cannot build universal childcare on the backs and bank accounts of the people already holding the system together."
The insider went further, saying the administration "continues to make ambitious promises about expanding 2-K, 3-K and pre-K" but that "universal child care cannot be built through press conferences and promises alone." The insider said City Hall is "demonstrating that it is in over its head."
Earlier in August, Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul stood together at a press conference to tout the city's childcare initiatives, which came with $1.2 billion in state funding. Mamdani unveiled a "2-Care" pilot program for two-year-olds, designed to expand citywide over four years. The optics were polished. The money behind the scenes was not.
When pressed on the funding delays earlier in the week, Mamdani said only that "we have made this very clear that this is a top priority internally." For providers spending their retirement savings to keep the lights on, that assurance rang hollow.
Mayoral spokeswoman Jenna Lyle acknowledged the delays were "unacceptable" but shifted blame to former Mayor Eric Adams' administration, claiming it had cut 600 employees tasked with building the childcare system. Lyle said the city has authorized overtime and is pulling additional contracting staff from across city government to finalize outstanding contracts and get them to the Comptroller for payment. City Hall told providers to expect loan approvals within five business days.
The blame-Adams defense has limits. Mamdani took office promising to fix the system his predecessor left behind. Inheriting a mess is one thing. Making the same mess worse, while holding press conferences about how well things are going, is another. The pattern recalls other moments when the mayor blamed staff for his own administration's missteps.
Bond, the Queens daycare director, captured the frustration shared by providers across the city:
"Mamdani promised positive change in early childhood education, and many trusted him by electing him to office, so when is that coming? We are anxiously waiting."
The payment delays land at a moment when the financial credibility of Mamdani's entire childcare agenda is already under scrutiny. A nonpartisan study by the Center for New York City Affairs found that the program will cost roughly $9 billion annually, about 50 percent more than the $6 billion Mamdani promised on the campaign trail. The gap is driven largely by the need to hire approximately 23,000 new childcare workers and create 10,000 new seats for children under pre-K age. City Hall has not released its own cost model and declined to comment on the $9 billion figure.
That cost explosion has been well documented, and it makes the current payment crisis more than a bureaucratic hiccup. If the city cannot manage the contracts and payments for programs it already has, the question of how it will scale a system 50 percent more expensive than advertised answers itself.
The bridge-loan system, designed as a stopgap, has become its own trap. Bond described the catch: whatever a provider receives as a bridge loan gets deducted from the eventual advance payment. Providers borrow from the city to survive, then have the money clawed back.
"Whatever the amount is on the bridge loan, when you get your advancement, they're going to take it back from you. It's always as if you're penny-pinching because they're always taking back what they appear to give you."
The New York Times reported that some providers were considering fronting $90,000 of their own money, taking reverse mortgages on their homes, or asking employees to apply for unemployment, all to keep city-contracted programs running. These are not hedge funds absorbing a quarterly loss. These are women running small daycare centers out of storefronts and converted houses, subsidizing a government program with their personal credit.
Mamdani's tenure has generated no shortage of controversies beyond childcare. His administration hired a canvasser later arrested for threatening Jewish high school students, and the mayor drew fierce backlash after publicly mourning a Rikers inmate charged in a killing. Each episode has eroded public confidence in an administration that promised competence and compassion in equal measure.
Five providers spoke to the Post this week. City & State first reported the growing panic on Tuesday. The pattern across every interview was the same: contracts unsigned, payments missing, personal money spent, and no firm answers from the city.
The school year starts September 10. Providers are supposed to have classrooms staffed, stocked, and ready. Some do not know if they can open at all. The city says it is working overtime. Providers say they have heard that before.
Universal childcare is a fine aspiration. But aspiration without execution is just a press conference, and you cannot pay a teacher's salary with a press release.
