Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul joined Mayor Mamdani to announce the first major milestone in their plan to deliver free child care for two-year-olds in New York City. They also announced the selection of the first four communities to receive 2,000 2-K seats this fall. This is a direct result of the Governor's $1.2 billion commitment to support early child care and early education efforts in New York City, which includes a significant allocation of $73 million to establish the first 2,000 2-K seats in the city, on top of funding from the State to strengthen the City's existing 3K infrastructure to achieve its promise to serve all families across the city. With continued State support, the State's investment in 2K is expected to grow to $425 million by next year.

B-ROLL TKTK is available to stream on Youtube here and TV quality is available here (h.264, mp4).

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Good morning, everyone, especially parents. Any parents out there in the audience? Let's do something together. Take a look at the faces of these children. Look into their eyes. Look at their sweet, innocent faces, especially the babies, and know that today is all about them because they're the ones that matter. They're the ones that are relying on us, the adults, to do something that those before had not done, had not had the ambition, the audacity, the courage, the willingness to go where no man or woman has gone before. And that is to assure that they have a secure future, starting off with a two-year-old program, and onward and upward so they can get the best shot in life and to give their parents just a little more breathing room, because it is so hard. They are sleep deprived. They're just walking around like zombies most of the time, just wondering, "When can I get an hour of sleep? How about two hours?" Okay. I digress a little bit, I'm reliving a lot of PTSD here.

Today we're delivering on something that's been talked about, but this is the first time the State of New York has made such an unprecedented commitment into the families and children of the City of New York, and we're not going backwards. We are committed. And you think about, as the Mayor mentioned, I want to thank him for just being someone who's has that sense of urgency that I share. I needed a partner that also said, let's do this yesterday, not someday in the future and do a study and think about it. We're done with that. We're New Yorkers, we want it done now. And today is about now. So thank you, Mayor, and thank you to your team and all the parent advocates who never gave up on this promise.

Now, whether or not you live in Washington Heights or the Rockaway or Brownsville, Kingsbridge, there's one thing that every family can agree on: that the cost of childcare is so outrageously high. Our kids are worth every penny, but the costs are so incredible. But you know what? They've been like that for generations.

Let me give you an echo back from a previous generation. When I was that young mom, I started out with a dream in my heart. All I wanted to do someday was - this is as high as it got for women of my era so forgive the lack of ambition here. I just wanted to be a staffer to a congressman or a senator on Capitol Hill. I had visited as a child and I thought someday I might be able to work in that building and help somebody else do really well, never having the ambition to be that person myself. But finally, that day arrived and I spent years working on Capitol Hill working for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan - one of the highlights of my life. I thought I was done. I'd achieved my goal at age 27.

But then we decided to start a family and boy was I not prepared. I had no idea that there was no support system. My family didn't live close by. I had no relatives, no friends who were in the same situation as I was. And the choice came down to this: do I continue with this job I love and try to figure it all out? I wind up having to stay home because I could not find childcare we could afford. I'm working on a government salary; my husband was working on a government salary. We made a decision that I would stay home to be there with those kids because we did not have childcare a generation ago.

Now they turned out fine. I got my career back on track. Everything ended up just fine, but you don't know it then. And when you're stressing out about the fact that you now have half the paycheck you once had, and the cost of diapers - even though you go out to the big box store and try to get them in bulk and stuff them in every inch of space you have because they take up a lot of space. And the cans of formula and the clothes that the kids keep outgrowing every three months, literally, you just try to scrape it all together and hope that someday this'll all end, that future parents won't have to endure this. But guess what friends? One generation later, those babies grew up and they're having their own children and they're still having trouble finding childcare.

So society did not improve or address this crisis until now. This is when everything changes. Now, we've been on this journey for a while. I decided years ago that something must be done. I stepped up as Governor. Now we've invested over $8 billion already in the four years that I've been Governor because no one else was making that commitment. No one else said, "Yes, it's expensive. es, it's hard to do, but we must continue on this path."

Now, when I first became Governor, families earning up to $57,000 a year could get a subsidy. They could get support. And I said, "What about everybody else?" So we added the money. Today that number stands almost double: $113,000. Up to that income, people can get major subsidies. Upwards of $15 a week, could be their total expense. Think about that - to go from 57,000 to 113,000 more families and children are able to take advantage of this.

We've doubled a number of vouchers. We directed bonuses for childcare workers. We've invested in the locations. Because here's the challenge: we have the ambition, we have the desire, but if we don't have the locations for this, it doesn't work. If you don't have the workers, it doesn't work. So that is the infrastructure that I've been building for years, waiting for this day to come. And we have prioritized this and I'm so proud of what this announcement is all about, Mayor, because it's a sign of tangible progress. And so, 2000 children with little adorable faces, like the ones right here, are going to know that they have a secure place to go and mom and dad can be less stressful.

So here's what we're doing. We're going to continue investing. Across the state, we're going to be guaranteeing universal pre-K for every child in the next two years. We're investing $60 million for upstate as well. I am telling you this: the money's there. That's why we're here today. The money is there. I made a commitment. The commitment is also through the next year as well, though I'm not supposed to budget too far out in advance, but I said I'm going to at least make the commitment for the next year. But the state of New York is not walking away. This is something I believe in to my core. There's no way I could walk away from a commitment to these beautiful little children. Not now, not ever. So you can count on that.

I want to make sure that our businesses are more enriched and they're stronger when we have a diverse workforce. Our communities are stronger when families don't have to pack up and leave, even across the river, because they built more housing and life is cheaper. We're working on housing too, Mayor. We need more housing for these young families.

But we're shaping a better New York that our kids are going to inherit. Their children will not have to struggle like my own children are today. That era is over. This says that our priorities are with the people of this state, with the families of the state, the moms and dads of this state, and of course above all, the children of the great State of New York and the great City of New York - and that's what today is all about. Let's celebrate.

And someone who understands the needs of children more than anyone in the city has to be our Chancellor, and that is Kamar Samuels. Let me introduce him and bring him up to the podium.

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