Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani says he wants funding for universal child care, but admits the system isn’t fully designed yet

"I'm not yet the mayor," he said as a reporter questioned him on specifics.

Mamdani joined "Little Scholars" day care in Manhattan Thursday morning. Before taking questions, he sat with toddlers, reading "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

According to Mamdani, child care is the second-highest cost in so many New Yorkers’ lives, behind housing.

“We see that in the average estimate of $22,500 a year, being the cost of child care for a single child across these five boroughs,” he told News 12 while at a day care in Brooklyn last month.

Mamdani drew inspiration from Quebec’s subsidized child care system, which launched in 1997. It's a program he says sees a 10-1 economic return.

Moments after, the Democratic Socialist admitted a key blueprint in his universal child care plan was still missing.

"Specifics of how many families, how many centers, that's exactly what we're hard at work right now over the course of this transition," he said. "We want to ensure, however, that these are not just commitments that can be shared in a press release, but ones that New Yorkers can take advantage of."

News 12 then asked the mayor-elect how he plans to fund the major project. Mamdani said he still believes raising taxes for the city's top earners is top of his priorities, despite Gov. Kathy Hochul saying she would not approve the tax hike.

He ensured pulling funds from other programs is not a part of the plan.

"I don't think we need to entertain the possibility of cuts in order to fund an agenda like this," he said. "What I've spoken about is an openness to different revenue streams beyond the two that I've proposed, while continuing to believe that those are the two that make the most sense."

The mayor did not confirm the other revenue sources he'd be open to in funding the childcare program, but mentioned early Thursday morning he met with business leader to talk about how the public and private sectors can work together to "make that city real."

"What I really appreciated about this meeting was a number of business leaders highlighting how, when they invested in child care in their own companies, they saw significant changes in their ability to retain the talent that they already have because it actually allowed those employees to build their families while working at those jobs," adding these leaders are "committed to taking on this issue... because of the imperative of the moral level, of an economic level [and] of a political level."

The mayor-elect did not go into too much detail on the specifics of his meeting, but said it was "a productive meeting," and "went very well."