On June 14, the City Council voted to adopt the City’s FY2019 budget, which includes $12m for adult literacy. $8 million will be on the administration’s side, and $4 million will come from the Council.  The City Council has actually already made its decisions on the $4m (see document pages 13-14). 

It is our understanding that the Administration’s portion is not baselined, but will be targeted to DYCD literacy programs. Note there is no written confirmation of this, and so we will be in touch with DYCD & the Mayor’s Office to encourage the full amount of resources be devoted to that purpose. 

Thank you for all your hard work and thank you to all the City Council Members who showed us so much support: 

Nice work NYCCAL! Today we had a successful kick off to our adult literacy tour of the boroughs. Participating in this morning’s rally in Queens were: Chinese American Planning Council, La Guardia CIET, Queens Community House, Make the Road New York, Sunnyside Community Services, the YMCA, and Jacob Riis Neighborhood Settlement. With well over 100 students and supporters in attendance, and five media outlets on hand, including NY1, this was a strong start to our efforts to raise the profile of the issue for the Mayor and City Council.
 
In fact, just this afternoon the City Council released their response to the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget, and in it they called for the Mayor to baseline his portion ($6m) of the $12m investment from FY2018. You can view their full response here.  As an FYI, the Council also called for a new $3m citywide citizenship fund to be administered by MOIA. The funding would be used to support citizenship application fees for  households with limited incomes, as well as provide financial literacy classes.

A roundup of some of the press we received for our rally in Queens this week: Queens Chronicle, NTD TV, China Press, Times Ledger, & World Journal.