One hundred early childhood educators at three Westchester County nonprofits are getting raises, part of a three-year pilot program funded by the New York Community Trust that county leaders hope will ease a child care shortage affecting families across the region.

The grant targets workers at the Lois Bronz Children's Center in White Plains, the Mount Kisco Child Care Center, and the Elizabeth Mascia Child Care Center in Tarrytown. The trust has not publicly disclosed the total grant amount. The program's theory: higher wages reduce turnover, which reopens closed classrooms.

Laura Rossi, vice president of the New York Community Trust's Westchester branch, said on the Friday, July 11, 2026, broadcast of News 12's "Power and Politics" that the program aims to improve recruitment and retention of child care staff. County Executive Ken Jenkins, Operations Director Emily Saltzman, and county legislators David Imamura and Jewel Williams Johnson also appeared on the segment to discuss the initiative.

Westchester County launched a waitlist for its Child Care Assistance Program on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2026, after a record number of families qualified for help and funding ran short. The county's Department of Social Services said the cost of care had risen so sharply that existing dollars could no longer cover everyone eligible.

Families on that waitlist with incomes below 350% of the federal poverty level may qualify for the Westchester Works Scholarship, administered through the Scarsdale-based Child Care Council of Westchester.

The staffing crisis is not unique to the county. A November 2025 statewide survey of 1,253 child care providers by the Empire State Campaign for Child Care found that 57% reported being understaffed, with programs closing classrooms and running their own waitlists because they could not hire enough workers. The campaign identified low wages as the primary driver: child care educators in New York earn less than 96% of all other occupations in the state.

"We cannot build universal child care on poverty wages," Citizen Action of New York organizer Enoshja Ruffin said in February 2026. "If we value children and working families, we must value and fairly compensate the professionals who make it possible."

Child care costs more than $20,000 per year on average in New York, according to New York Focus reporting.

The Child Care Council of Westchester received a separate $100,000 Empire State Development grant in May 2026 to build a Child Care Workforce Training Center at 520 White Plains Road in Tarrytown. The center will be the second child care training simulation room in New York State.

The New York Community Trust pilot is a private philanthropic initiative, not a county budget action, so no public vote or comment period is scheduled. Families seeking child care assistance can contact Westchester County's Department of Social Services about the CCAP waitlist or inquire about the Westchester Works Scholarship through the Child Care Council of Westchester in Scarsdale.