We would like to thank the Council’s Committees on Health and Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction for holding this oversight hearing on the City’s FY2026 Preliminary Budget. My name is Lori Podvesker, and I am the Director of Policy at INCLUDEnyc. For over 41 years, INCLUDEnyc (formerly known as Resources for Children with Special Needs) has helped hundreds of thousands of NYC families navigate the complex special education service and support systems.
Today, we testify to urge the Council to fund the Autism Awareness Initiative in FY2026 fully. Families with children on the autism spectrum have always struggled with accessing adequate services and support for their loved ones living at home. However, with devastating cuts looming at the federal level to Medicaid and education, there has never been a more significant time than now for the City to fund services and ensure the individuals who benefit from them continue to do so in the coming fiscal year.
This funding will allow community-based organizations such as INCLUDEnyc to continue supporting and connecting children and families in dire need of critical information on how to access services and support at home, school, and within the community, such as Early Intervention, preschool, and school-age special education services, public benefits, home and community-based- services through NY State’s Office of People with Developmental Disabilities, child and medical care, behavioral and mental health support, and socialization activities and groups. We also expect in the coming year to see extreme staffing and program shortages, significant delays in evaluations, larger class sizes, and reduced protections for students with disabilities and civil rights enforcement, sadly leaving the safety of our most vulnerable children at even greater risk than it is today.
According to the most recent annual report on special education from New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) to the City Council as per Local Law 27, more than 33,000 children with autism between the ages of 3-21 received special education services last school year. As per the
January 2025 Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report, roughly 10% of all infants and toddlers receive Early Intervention services, including 4400 babies receiving Early Intervention services for the first time in the first four months of FY25.
In FY2024, our Help Line staff responded to over 1200 requests related to autism, including 400 of them for children under five years old. We held 32 autism-related workshops with over 1700 attendees, of which one-third were professionals. In June, we had our annual Outdoors for Autism, a sensory-friendly event for children on the autism spectrum and their families; nearly 800 people attended, and almost half were children under eighteen.
We urge the Council to restore funding to the Autism Awareness Initiative to the level it was funded at in FY 23 and apply a 3% increase to help providers address the rising costs of providing services for a total investment of $3,416,351 in FY26. These funds provide vital resources for programs that would often not have any other City support. Thank you for taking the time today to consider this important matter. We look forward to partnering with you to improve equity and access for all young people with disabilities in New York City.
Sincerely,
Lori Podvesker
Director of Disability and Education Policy