State Comptroller Sean Scanlon, Sen. Martin Looney (D-New Haven) and several childcare advocates took a victory lap on July 31. During a one-hour panel on affordable and accessible childcare, there was a conversation about the Connecticut Early Childhood Education Endowment Fund and the future of early childhood education.
The fund was established this legislative session as a part of Senate Bill 1 (SB1). Every year, some unappropriated money from the General Fund will be added to the Early Childhood Education Endowment Fund. On July 1, the first $300 million was transferred into it.
“We have known for a long time that there is a severe crisis in early childhood education and preparation in the state, but this year, we were able to get all the planets aligned because it was something that was a priority for the administration,” Looney said. “Obviously it was the highest priority bill for (the Senate), so it was named Senate Bill number 1. It was also the highest priority for House Speaker Ritter.”
The Fund will expand early childcare and education programs, and at least 35% of new spaces will be dedicated to infants and toddlers. On top of that, there will be grants for new facilities and a parent portal will be established to make it easier to apply for childcare spots. The stated goal for the fund is to make it so families that make less than $100,000 do not pay for childcare, and families that make more than that do not have to spend more than 7% of their household income on childcare.
But the biggest appeal is that it will make childcare, and pre-school in particular, more accessible to kids who otherwise don’t have access to it, Looney emphasized at the panel.
“Teachers can tell from day one, or at least in the first week, which children have had a quality pre-school program, a quality daycare, as opposed to those who have not,” Looney said. “And for those who have not, school is a struggle from day one. We know in many cases, children never recover from that lack of preparation for kindergarten.”
Across the state, families with young children spend between $16,000 and $23,000 a year per child on childcare in Connecticut, according to Eva Bermudez Zimmerman, the director of Child Care for CT. In some parts of the state, this is even higher—for example, in Fairfield County, family may spend up to $35,000 on childcare per child, she said. In southeastern Connecticut, the average family spends 27% of their household income on child care.
“What that means is that people are not buying houses; one in five people are actually unable to go to work, because they can’t afford it,” Executive Director of the New Haven-based Friends Center for Children Allyx Schiavone said. “So we’re losing workforce, we have a labor shortage because of this. Living paycheck to paycheck, then or you’re making choices that may not be the best choice for your child because you are forced to do this.”
While the cost of childcare strain puts strains on families, childcare workers do not make that much money, Schiavone and Zimmerman argued.
“The majority of providers in Connecticut, they’re lucky to make a dollar above minimum wage,” Zimmerman said.
While childcare workers in centers tend to make more money, there are a substantial number of providers who work out of people’s homes or spend full days with children. These irregular hours make childcare expensive, but also limit how much money providers can make, according to Zimmerman.
According to Schiavone, childcare workers are “paid below 97% of all other jobs” in the state, something she claims is an “intentional outcome” of a system “steeped in” racism and sexism. One of the most important aspects of this endowment fund is that it will make childcare more affordable, while establishing a pay parity between early education providers and K-12 teachers, she said.
The benefits of the fund are supposed to take into effect in Fiscal Year 2028.
“This initiative is what we could do at this point in time because we had amazing champions… however, we will serve about 52,000 children by 2035 with this legislation, That means we will only be serving about 50% of the people who need early care in education in the state,” Schiavone said. “This is incredible and we can’t lose sight of that, and the analogy is, we’ve run the triathlon, we’re in the last leg.”
Not everyone is supportive of this fund. In a joint statement, Republican Senators Heather Somers (Groton), Ryan Fazio (Greenwich) and Stephen Harding (Brookfield) called the endowment a “gimmick.”
“Republicans support pre-K investments, but it must be done the right way and within the confines of the state budget. Instead, Gov. Lamont created this off-budget slush fund that exists outside the limits of the state government spending cap,” the statement said. “It flagrantly violates the spirit of our smart bipartisan fiscal guardrails and will lead to future tax hikes on working families. Back in 2016, these same sleight-of-hand off-budget accounts led Connecticut to be in the worst financial situation that we had been in for years and led to the two highest tax increases in Connecticut history.”
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