NYSAC: Federal funding freeze could punish families, shift new costs to local taxpayers
Association of Counties calls on Feds to restore funding and work with states to address fraud concerns
Press Release, NYS Association of Counties
The Trump Administration’s freeze on funding for three critical social service programs threatens to destabilize essential services that support the state’s most vulnerable children and families, according to the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC), the municipal association that represents the State’s 57 counties and the City of New York.
The Association is calling on the Federal government to restore these funds and work with states to address legitimate fraud concerns through proper oversight channels.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notified New York State on January 6 that it will withhold funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), and Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) programs in New York and four other states. In New York, these programs are administered and partially funded by counties and local taxpayers.
“This funding freeze could lead to devastating consequences for innocent children and families who rely on childcare subsidies, local taxpayers, and the counties that administer these programs,” said NYSAC President Philip R. Church, the Oswego County Administrator. “While we all support rigorous oversight and fraud prevention, and work hard to ensure taxpayer dollars are used appropriately, a blanket withholding is the wrong approach and will create collateral damage that far exceeds any fraud concerns.”
As part of a broader action targeting California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, HHS is freezing over $10 billion in funding nationwide for these programs.
“If this funding is not restored, it will cause massive disruption to programs that help hundreds of thousands of working families,” said NYSAC Executive Director Stephen J. Acquario. “Losing child care subsidies will hit working families hard and exacerbate New York’s affordability crisis. Most forms of federal public assistance will disappear and when that happens, costs will get shifted to county-taxpayer-funded Safety Net programs.”
A prolonged freeze will cause a fiscal catastrophe for New York’s counties, which are now facing billions in new costs from the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which shifts significant new SNAP administrative costs and Medicaid expenses to counties.
Counties across New York State determine eligibility for child care assistance and administer public assistance programs using a combination of federal and state dollars. Family Assistance, which operates under federal TANF guidelines, forms the foundation of cash assistance programs statewide. The Social Services Block Grant consists entirely of federal funding and supports a range of services including child welfare, child protective services, and child care.
Under federal law, the TANF grant is an entitlement to states, established through the welfare reform legislation of the late 1990s. While that legislation eliminated the welfare entitlement to individuals, it created an entitlement to states that were then authorized to build their own programs as long as they met federal guidelines. This state entitlement ensured that services would continue to flow to eligible recipients.
“Our county leaders share the federal government’s commitment to program integrity and preventing fraud,” said Acquario. “Any and every allegation of fraud should be investigated and prosecuted through proper channels, not by withholding funding that supports hundreds of thousands of eligible New York families who have done nothing wrong.”
NYSAC will seek to join the New York State Attorney General’s lawsuit to restore child care funding and ensure continuity of services for eligible families.
NYSAC calls on the Trump administration to:
- Immediately restore funding for TANF, CCDF, and SSBG programs to ensure continuity of services;
- Work with New York to address fraud concerns through existing federal oversight mechanisms;
- Target enforcement actions at specific bad actors rather than implementing blanket funding cuts that harm innocent eligible families; and
- Recognize that New York State has robust eligibility verification systems in place and should not be penalized for isolated instances of fraud.
“New York counties will continue to serve our residents and uphold our role as safety net providers for our neighbors most at need,” said Church. “But we need our federal partners to work with us constructively, not against us. Cutting off funding will hurt innocent families these programs were designed to protect.”
