Up to 100 child care educators at three Westchester nonprofit day care centers will receive a $2-an-hour raise for more than three years, funded by a $1 million grant from the New York Community Trust. The pilot, announced Tuesday, July 15, is structured to test whether better wages can stabilize staffing and open more care slots for working parents countywide.

None of the three participating centers is in Rye, Harrison, or Rye Brook. The sites are Mount Kisco Child Care Center, Lois Bronz Children's Center in White Plains, and Elizabeth Mascia Child Care Center in Tarrytown. But the trust designed the 40-month program to generate data that state or county policymakers could use to expand wage supplements more broadly, a potential benefit for families across Westchester who face the same child care shortage.

"Westchester cannot solve the affordability crisis without confronting the workforce crisis at the center of child care," Laura Rossi, the trust's vice president for Westchester, said in a statement. "Early childhood educators do essential, highly skilled work, yet too many are paid wages that make it impossible to stay in the field."

Educators at the three centers earn between $17 and $24 an hour. Statewide, the median child care educator wage is $18.11 per hour, less than 96% of all occupations in New York, according to the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy. Many educators effectively took a pay cut in 2025 after the state ended pandemic-era workforce bonuses, the Schuyler Center reported in January 2026.

The trust studied government-funded wage supplements already operating in nine other states and is hiring a consultant to track how the raises affect hiring, retention, job satisfaction, and available care slots. A task force of county legislators, including Legislator Jewel Williams Johnson, will monitor the program's progress. Johnson called child care "both a family necessity and an economic foundation" in a statement accompanying the announcement.

More than 60% of New York children live in a child care desert, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government. Westchester faces a disproportionate gap: 18 of the state's 40 school districts without a Universal Pre-Kindergarten program are in the county, more than any other county in New York, the Rockefeller Institute reported in January 2026.

Rye families received a separate state investment in the YMCA of Rye for child care capacity expansion, announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday, June 29.

County Executive Ken Jenkins pushed back after the grant was announced, issuing a statement warning that "short-term, limited initiatives that are not fully integrated into the existing childcare ecosystem also risk disrupting an already fragile workforce, creating unintended consequences for providers." Jenkins said he would have preferred a more collaborative approach coordinated with existing county efforts.

The trust responded by commending Jenkins for his commitment to Westchester's child care needs and pledging to collaborate on multiple solutions.

The pilot launches in September 2026. No public comment period or meeting date specific to Rye, Harrison, or Rye Brook families has been announced in connection with the program.