A 353: Relates to amending the universal full-day pre-kindergarten program subscription amount for regions other than New York city.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 353 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN ASSEMBLY (Prefiled) January 8, 2025 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. PAULIN, STECK, SIMON, SANTABARBARA, LUPARDO, McDONOUGH, MAGNARELLI, COOK, TAYLOR, VANEL, HYNDMAN, COLTON, WEPRIN, JONES, LAVINE, WOERNER, RIVERA, RAMOS, CHANDLER-WATERMAN -- Multi- Sponsored by -- M. of A. RA -- read once and referred to the Committee on Education AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to the universal full-day pre-kindergarten program; and to repeal subdivision 4 of section 3602-ee of such law relating thereto The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Subdivision 4 of section 3602-ee of the education law is 2 REPEALED. 3 § 2. Subdivisions 1 and 5 of section 3602-ee of the education law, as 4 added by section 1 of part CC of chapter 56 of the laws of 2014, are 5 amended to read as follows: 6 1. The purpose of the universal full-day pre-kindergarten program is 7 to incentivize and fund state-of-the-art innovative pre-kindergarten 8 programs [and to encourage program creativity through competition]. 9 5. The department shall develop a scoring system, which it shall use 10 to evaluate which applications shall be funded [on a competitive basis] 11 based on merit and factors including but not limited to the criteria 12 listed above and student and community need. [Upon review of applica- 13 tions, if the program is oversubscribed in any region or regions of the 14 state, the department shall notify the division of the budget, which 15 shall develop a plan for distribution of available slots within any 16 oversubscribed region.] The subscription for the New York city region is 17 three hundred million dollars. The subscription for each region of the 18 state other than the New York city region shall be in an amount suffi- 19 cient to provide slots for all qualifying programs. The department shall 20 allocate full-day pre-kindergarten conversion slots and new full-day EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD01061-01-5 
 A. 353 2 1 pre-kindergarten slots based on available funding and shall make 2 payments upon documentation of eligible expenditures in the base year, 3 which shall be limited to the actual number of slots operated and paid 4 on a per-pupil basis pursuant to subdivision fourteen of this section. 5 § 3. This act shall take effect on the first of July next succeeding 6 the date on which it shall have become a law.