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As New York City’s free childcare program is on track to reach 12,000 2-year-olds next year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul revealed Monday which new neighborhoods will get the program.

The expansion will bring the program to 22 of the city’s 32 school districts, including all of the Bronx and Staten Island, after that borough had been left out of this year’s inaugural 2,000 seats . Mamdani has pledged to expand the program citywide for all 2-year-olds who need it by the end of his first term, though Hochul has only committed funding for the first two years.

Hochul committed $73 million to the program this year and plans to spend $425 million next year .

“From Co-op City in the Bronx to Staten Island’s South Shore, we’re bringing 2-K to every borough and making New York City more affordable for working people,” Mamdani said in a statement.

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Toddlers who turn 2 in 2027 will be eligible to participate in next year’s program. Officials didn’t immediately provide a breakdown of how many seats will be available in each of the new districts. Officials did not promise that every eligible student in the covered districts would get a seat, but a Mamdani spokesperson said the goal is to reach as many families as possible.

More than 5,000 families applied for the 2,000 seats that opened this year, a sign of unmet demand for the program, officials said.

Unlike the city’s free programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, the city funds most 2-K programs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., year-round . For participating families, that can mean savings of more than $20,000 a year.

“This is how we deliver real relief for working families, and make sure our kids get the best possible start in life,” Hochul said in a statement.

(Some families, however, need care outside of traditional weekday hours and rely on state-funded childcare vouchers. Earlier this month, Mamdani announced plans to enroll about 10,000 kids from a waitlist that had grown to 30,000.)

To expand 2-K next year, city officials said they will begin reaching out this week to childcare providers in the covered districts who already receive funding from the city to operate 3-K and prekindergarten programs to gauge their interest in opening 2-K seats.

Some, however, may be wary. Many private childcare operators who contract with the city to run 2-K, 3-K and prekindergarten programs said they faced crippling delays in getting their city reimbursements this year — a longstanding problem some providers said grew worse this year.

Mamdani pledged an all-government effort to expedite the approval of new contracts and promised to fill hundreds of staffing vacancies in the Education Department’s early childhood education division.