Onondaga County reopens child care waitlist after new state funding

Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon announced Tuesday that the county reopened its Child Care Assistance Program waitlist after more than $55 million in new state budget money gave officials room to take families again. The funding will let the county work through a backlog of 477 families while continuing to serve about 5,000 children already enrolled.

The county’s Department of Social Services-Economic Security Childcare Unit is expected to start contacting families on the waitlist, and priority families can reapply with a response expected within 30 days. New applications are being accepted again, and eligibility processing should return to normal by the end of August.

The reopening followed a year of strain in which Onondaga County paused new child care assistance applications on June 1, 2025 because money was running out. The county later received a state waiver that allowed it to keep 95% of current child care cases open while officials worked through the budget gap, which they had put at about $2 million.

McMahon said the new support helps families and gives parents a better chance to get into providers they already trust, but the county’s access problem remains far from solved. Since 2021, Onondaga County has created more than 1,100 new child care slots and helped more than 1,800 families gain access through expanded eligibility, yet demand still outpaces the number of providers willing or able to take children.

Licensed providers in Onondaga County meet less than 30% of need, and a 2022 report counted 42 child care providers lost since 2020. The result has been a system where parents often sign up for multiple waitlists, sometimes even during pregnancy, because openings can disappear before they return to work.

The state funding comes as Governor Kathy Hochul and state leaders put child care at the center of the FY 2027 budget, a package intended to move New York toward universal child care and support affordable care for up to 100,000 additional children statewide.