Vigils to be held throughout East End in memory of Renee Nicole Good

The state will not be able to cover "hundreds of millions of dollars" in expenses for social services like child care, emergency housing and public assistance if a freeze imposed by the Trump administration is not lifted by the end of the month, a spokesperson for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's office said yesterday. Lorena Mongelli reports in NEWSDAY that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday that it was withholding $10 billion in child care and family assistance subsidies to five Democrat-led states, including New York, as it conducts a review amid claims of fraud. The move followed allegations of fraud at several child care centers in Minnesota.

At a virtual press conference Thursday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) told reporters, “This funding freeze is leaving our most vulnerable families and child care providers in a devastating limbo, not knowing if or when they will lose the assistance that they rely on to send their children to day care and keep their businesses running."

NYS Attorney General Letitia James said in a release last night she is leading a coalition of four attorneys general in suing the Trump administration in the Southern District of New York, seeking a federal court order preventing the freeze and declaring it unlawful.

HHS has said it was pausing funds to three programs overseen by the agency's Administration for Children and Families: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Child Care and Development Fund and the Social Services Block Grant.

New York uses more than $3.6 billion yearly to run these programs — $2.7 billion for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which serves more than 202,000 New Yorkers yearly; $832 million for the Child Care and Development Fund, which serves 170,000 children annually; and $93 million for the Social Services Block Grant, which serves 164,000 children and 52,000 vulnerable adults.

As part of its review of the Child Care and Development Fund, the government is asking for attendance documentation for "subsidized child care services," with personal information redacted, according to a letter sent to Hochul that was obtained by Newsday.

For the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Social Services Block Grant program, the government is requesting detailed administrative data such as recipients' names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth from at least 2022 to 2025. The deadline to submit this information is Jan. 20.

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The Remsenburg-Speonk School District has partnered with the Southampton Town Police Department to implement a new emergency alert system to improve communication between the district and Town Police during emergencies. Dan Stark reports on 27east.com that as part of the Centegix CrisisAlert system, teachers and faculty members at Remsenburg-Speonk Elementary School are given lanyards that hold a card with a button to press during emergences. Pressing the button three times will send an internal alert to the school’s security team. Doing so more than eight times will alert the police dispatch. As part of the system, messages are displayed on interactive displays, such as smartboards, in classrooms, including a red banner that reads “lockdown” in those scenarios, followed by instructions with safety protocols. In classrooms without smartboards, these instructions will come up on teachers’ laptops for them to relay to students. The district is currently working on replacing older smartboards in certain classrooms to ensure that each room can properly display the emergency messages.

Remsenburg-Speonk is the first school district in Southampton Town to utilize the system. Superintendent Denise Sullivan said that Town Police see the district as a “pilot” for other school districts in the town considering it. “What Remsenburg School is doing with its crisis alert system is cutting edge,” Southampton Town Police Chief...