OPINION

Kids a priority in city budget

ROC

City leadership including Mayor Lovely Warren, her administrative team, and City Council is critically important for improving the future of Rochester's children and youth.

We know the statistics all too well: nearly 50 percent of children live in poverty, teen pregnancy rates are among the worst of any U.S. city, the academic outcomes for children in Rochester City Schools are among the worst in New York State.

It is in this context that we review the proposed City of Rochester budget each year to understand its impact on children, youth and families. Simply put: budgets are about priorities, and our community will only fare as well as our children do.

The Children's Agenda finds that Mayor Warren proposes a 2014-15 budget for the City of Rochester that maintains stable funding for children's services and programs despite another tough budget year.

The Mayor plans greater attention to the quality of City programs impacting its young residents, achieves some modest increases in staffing for the Department of Recreation and Youth Services, and smartly seeks an external review of the effectiveness of two key programs: the Recreation Bureau and Pathways to Peace, a violence prevention program.

In addition, City priorities are also clear in the administration's leadership and participation in a number of initiatives designed to unite forces to improve academic and life success among our children, such as the Mayor's Early Learning Commission, ROC the Future, the Parent Leadership Training Institute, the National League of Cities' technical assistance program, and the Early Childhood Development Initiative.

We appreciate these efforts on behalf of our community's most vulnerable children and have three key recommendations for the Mayor and the city's further work:

1. Develop a Comprehensive Children's Budget and Child Impact Statement. The City should plan to implement, by the start of the 2015-16 fiscal year, a mechanism to evaluate policy and budget decisions in light of their likely impact (positive, negative, or neutral) on outcomes for children's health, education and success.

2. Improve Assessment of Program Impact. The metrics with which the City measures and reports on the impact of its programs and services, particularly those which involve children and youth, need review and revision to ensure we are achieving the results intended.

3. Align City Efforts with Community-Wide Initiatives to Leverage Collective Impact: The City should continue to invest its staff time and resources in current public/private and intergovernmental partnerships focused on improving the lives of Rochester's children.

Continued leadership and prioritization of resources, effectiveness of programs and policies, and collaboration are essential for the future of Rochester's children and youth. Mayor Warren has made a good start, and there is much more for her and the city — and all of us — to do.

Kaczorowski , M.D. , is president of The Children's Agenda and Hurley is a policy analyst.

"The Children's Agenda finds that Mayor Warren proposes a 2014-15 budget for the City of Rochester that maintains stable funding for children's services and programs despite another tough budget year. "