The Adams administration is not aiming to hit former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s goal of paying for 60,000 3-K seats by next school year — but city education leaders say that doesn’t mean they’re not focused on early childhood education.

“If anything, we’re even more focused, because we’re ensuring we’re building a continuum, a high-quality continuum for children, birth to [age] 5,” Kara Ahmed, deputy chancellor of early childhood education, said.

Ahmed told NY1 the administration must grapple with challenges facing the 3-K program, which provides free, full-day pre-kindergarten for 3 year olds. Chief among them: how to keep paying for its expansion.

“It has been funded by one-time stimulus money, so we have committed short-term funds to what really is a long-term promise to children and families across New York City, and those are stimulus funds that are going to disappear in 2024,” she said.

George Sweeting, acting director of the Independent Budget Office, says the city will have to cover the costs. And the global economy, open city labor contracts and hits to city pensions have made the fiscal outlook even more difficult.

"The city would have to come up with about $400 million,” Sweeting said. “At the moment, there's no replacement for those federal dollars in the budget."

Ahmed says rather than adding new seats, the city is now focused on making sure existing seats are in the right places. Some neighborhoods — like the Upper East Side and Staten Island's South Shore — have a shortage of seats, while others, including Highbridge in the Bronx and East New York in Brooklyn, have hundreds of empty spots.

"There's just been a placement of seats and a focus on quantity, not necessarily quality, or the intentional and meaningful placement of those seats,” she said.

That means a school might have a 3-K seat for a child, and one for kindergarten, but not a pre-K.

"In many instances, it’s caused, actually, a disruption in learning and care for children,” she said.

As it grapples with how to fund the program, the city will be assessing how many seats are needed at which level in each community, and may convert some seats. Spots slated for 3-K that are going unused could be changed to seats for infant care if there is demand. Empty pre-K seats could be switched to 3-K slots in other neighborhoods.

Ahmed says the city needs to get it right.

"Children get one shot at being 1 years old, 2 years old, 3 years old. And they don’t get a do-over,” she said.