The number of children enrolled in New York City public childcare has jumped in the last six years – and the amount of spending on the programs has risen at an even greater rate.

However, although Mayor Bloomberg recently proposed a renewed focus on childcare, the pot of state and federal money dedicated to paying for the programs is shrinking and seems likely to continue doing so in coming years, a report released yesterday by the New York City Independent Budget Office said.

“For a number of years,the city’s been able to expand its childcare efforts due to a sizable increase in state and federal funding,” the chief of staff and communications director at the IBO, Doug Turetsky, said. “That increase reversed this year, and it may get harder for the city to maintain its current initiatives as well as implement the improvements it’s planning without new resources.”

Since 1999, childcare enrollment has increased to more than 107,000 children from 89,000, a 21% rise. Although multiple city agencies provide childcare services, the growth has been confined to the Human Resources Administration.

Spending on the programs has increased even faster. It leaped to $730 million in 2005 from $517 million in 1999, a 41% increase. The Human Resources Administration’s increase in spending was substantially greater: 174%.

The IBO study said the Child Care Block Grant – comprised of federal and state funds – has accounted for more than 60% of the city’s childcare budget since 2002. This year, the block grant allocation declined, and the report predicts the downward trend is likely to continue.

“We’re already seeing a decline in the state and federal dollars this year,” Mr. Turetsky explained. “They were able to plug it with the use of some leftover funds … but it’s not clear they’re going to be able to do that again.”

In October, as part of his re-election campaign, Mr. Bloomberg pledged he would substantially increase the number of children enrolled in early childhood programs. That project, he said, would be funded with part of the courtordered settlement from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, money that has yet to arrive in the city.

During the campaign event, the mayor also proposed reducing inefficiency by cutting out duplication in the city’s programs for its youngest children. That recommendation and others are detailed in a strategic plan released at about the same time by the Administration for Children’s Services.

The ACS press secretary, Sheila Stainback, said, “We are always concerned about the chronic or the insufficient amount of space for childcare, but we’ve released a strategic plan that’s going to improve services by better aligning and deploying our resources to provide a broad continuum of care for families.”

She said the “modest savings” produced by the plan might not be able to fill the entire gap left by the expected budget shortfall, but added, “We’ll be looking at opportunities where we can identify more federal and state funds … but you have to start with the situation you have now – what more you can be doing with what you have now so it is more efficient and more people who do not have childcare are able to have it.”