DeB dare to Cuomo on pre-K

Mayor: I can fill 29K seats if Albany gives OK

Mayor de Blasio is throwing down the gauntlet to Gov. Cuomo on expanding preK, claiming he’s got 29,000 new seats ready to go for September — if Albany approves his funding plan.

That plan calls for a tax hike on the wealthy in New York City that Cuomo insists isn’t necessary because the state is ready to pick up the full preK tab.

In moving ahead on his own, the mayor suggested the governor was all talk.

“I have not seen a detailed plan from any quarter in Albany,” de Blasio declared Tuesday at a press conference inside Little Italy’s PS 130.

“Lots of different players in Albany . . . but no one has put forward anything that would actually achieve what we’re talking about except the plan I put forward.”

The mayor said he has commitments from community organizations to make 20,000 seats available at 650 locations, while public schools are ready to contribute 9,000 spots at 280 sites.

De Blasio said many of the sites are in the highestneed neighborhoods.

But his office refused to provide a list of any of the locations or the names of the spon soring organizations or to say if the preK spaces had been approved by the various city agencies that oversee them.

Albany insiders derided the mayor’s announcement and accompanying 10page report as nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

“This is twice in one month that de Blasio has said he has a plan that shows the city is ready for universal preK but he hasn’t told anyone where a single classroom is!” one insider said.

“Today, they’ve got nonprofits who live off the government teat to say they’ll take government money. That’s progress? Really?”

Cuomo, meanwhile, was on the Fox Business Network promising to hold the line on higher taxes while simultaneously committing to fund preK statewide.

“The state has the funds so that we don’t have to raise taxes, because we have been trying to send the opposite signal for the past three years,” Cuomo said.

“We are very much aware we are in a competitive environment,” he added, referring to highincome residents considering moving to lowertax states.

“I understand the fear. Stay where you are because we are going to address it,” the governor said.