Despite the efforts of the Mayor Eric Adams administration to address the backlog of unregistered contracts, nonprofits continue to face acute delays in contract registration and payment in select areas. Of particular concern is early childhood education (“ECE”), an area in which delays in payment have pushed nonprofits to the point of financial distress. Based on data available through Checkbook NYC, we estimate that nonprofits providing ECE services face a cumulative cash deficit (or funding gap) of over $464 million for work they performed on behalf of New York City in fiscal year 2022. This represents more than 37% of the total work that was completed during the year and corroborates what we have learned anecdotally: the system is at its breaking point. (author abstract)