ALBANY – Mayor Bill de Blasio headed to Albany Monday morning to push his plan for universal pre-kindergarten.
Testifying before the joint Fiscal Committees, de Blasio said he’d like to raise taxes on those making more than $ 500,000 a year.
The money would fund what he said is the $ 340 million needed to provide every 4-year-old in the city with full day pre-kindergarten.
De Blasio said that the program needs a steady source of funding.
“The city’s right to self-determination, to setting and carrying out our own priorities, should be honored in Albany,” de Blasio said. “Universal pre-k and after-school programs must have a dedicated funding stream, a lock box, shielded from what we all know is the inevitable give and take of the budgeting process.”
De Blasio also pointed out that Albany has given the city the right to add a temporary tax in the past.
In the early ’90s, lawmakers allowed the Dinkins administration to levy a similar tax to fund the “Safe Streets – Safe City” program.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has offered to have Albany fund universal pre-k around the state without raising taxes, but the governor’s state budget only included a fraction of what the mayor says the program needs.
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