$170 Million in State Pre-K Funds Went Unused by New York School Districts

After spending $28,000 on two years of daycare, Brookhaven resident Kayla Muglia was eager to enroll her son in her Long Island school district’s free pre-K program for 4-year-olds. But last May, months after submitting an application, Muglia received disappointing news: He had been waitlisted.

New York school districts with state-funded pre-K are required to hold a random lottery when the number of applicants exceeds available seats. In Suffolk County, where Muglia is a school social worker, universal pre-K access and enrollment has long lagged behind the rest of the state. Unable to gamble on an uncertain opening, she shelled out another $14,000 for private daycare. 

“If there is such a desire for the pre-K program, why is the district not looking to expand it?” she asked. “Why are we not exploring opportunities to widen the scope of this program and make it available to more families?” 

It’s not simply a lack of state funding. New York state allocated $1.4 million for pre-K in the district during the 2024-25 school year. The total funding available to a district is based on a target enrollment number set by the state when it first establishes a pre-K program. But like most state school districts, Muglia’s left a significant amount of those funds — over $580,000 — on the table.

During the 2024-25 school year, roughly $170 million of the $1.2 billion the state earmarked for public pre-K went unused, according to a State Education Department report prepared for the governor and state legislature and obtained through a FOIL request. 

“Understanding why allocations remain underutilized is critical,” the report reads. “Every dollar left unused represents a lost opportunity to expand access, enhance program quality, and advance equity for New York’s four-year-olds.” 

A New York Focus analysis found that of the 658 school districts allocated funding for the school year, over half left more than $100,000 on the table. The most extreme case was in the Hudson Valley’s Monroe-Woodbury Central School District where more than $4.7 million in available state funding went unspent. The district did not respond to requests for comment.

The reasons for that underspending vary. The report highlights administrative burdens, demographic shifts that have led to lower enrollment, and insufficient funding per seat.

Districts contacted by New York Focus largely echoed those concerns. Some said it was difficult to find space and staff for the program, thanks in part to the low reimbursement rate, which in recent years has been set at a minimum of $5,400 per child. 

In 2024, the Corning-Painted Post Area School District in the Southern Tier of the state sent out a request for proposals to more than 30 community-based providers, but with a reimbursement rate of just over $6,400, it received a response from only two. Limited seats meant 24 applicants missed out on the program. 

The state budget passed last month could change things significantly. As part of a sweeping $4.5 billion child care investment, it nearly doubles the reimbursement rate for schools to $10,000 per preschooler. 

But responses from more than a dozen districts suggest that money alone is unlikely to overcome barriers to universal access.

Several districts — including Arlington, Clarkstown, Garden City, Longwood, Ossining, Port Chester Rye, Syracuse, Suffern, and White Plains — said they simply had more open seats than applicants. In some cases, families may be opting for private care, which often has longer hours that better align with working parents’ schedules. Unlike older children who can ride a school bus, small children typically require options close to home.

Marina Marcou-O’Malley, co-executive director of education nonprofit Alliance for Quality Education, said the boost in funding is a good starting point — but the state must also address other obstacles that could impede districts as they work toward universal access. 

By the 2028–29 school year, school districts will be required by a new state law to offer a full-day pre-K seat to every eligible 4-year-old whose family applies.

“Yes, we’re putting money into the system, but we also need to go back often to see what is working, what is good enough, and what this funding actually produces,” she said. 

Guilderland County School District in the Capital District of New York had to waitlist 50 families and turn down more than $1.1 million last year because it couldn’t recruit enough partners to serve every family who applied. Rachel Anderson, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said the mandate will require the district to double its current capacity from seven classrooms to at least 15. A higher per-pupil rate will help, she said, but “it may be difficult to secure enough partners to fully meet that need.” 

State law does not require school districts to dip into their budgets to fund pre-K, but Marcou-O’Malley said school districts should be expected to use part of their local budgets to fund high-quality pre-K programs, just as they do to fund K–12. She pointed to an October report co-published by the Alliance for Quality Education, which recommended that the state require wealthier districts to make a mandatory minimum local contribution to guarantee all families have access to high-quality universal pre-K.

State Senator James Skoufis, who represents several Hudson Valley school districts that used only part of their allotment, said that districts need to make pre-K a priority and agreed that school districts should help cover the cost. He said districts should be held accountable when state funding doesn’t translate into actual seats. He has continued to call out the Hudson Valley districts he represents for leaving millions of dollars unused.

“Those unspent funds mean families are having to choose between spending $15,000 to educate their child or not educating their child at all,” Skoufis said. “That lies squarely at the feet of school districts, their administrators, and their boards.”