The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Children’s advocates talk about budget pain
Meeting with officials covers variety of topics
MIDDLETOWN >> More questions were asked than answered Thursday during a discussion between Middlesex County legislators and members of the Middlesex Coalition for Children.
Care 4 Kids, school readiness, the state’s library system and juvenile justice were some topics raised during the panel session at a monthly meeting that draws dozens of area professionals to the deKoven House.
Middlesex delegation members, including state Sen. Paul Doyle and state Reps. Melissa Ziobron, Noreen Kokoruda and Matt Lesser, fielded questions and spoke to the group about what to expect during the 2017 legislative session.
The budget will remain a major focus in Hartford as the governor proposes a two-year budget while facing a $1.5 billion deficit in the next fiscal year and $1.6 billion in 2018-19, said Ziobron, of East Haddam, now the ranking House Republican on the budget-writing
Appropriations Committee.
Both Lesser, chairman of the Banking Committee; and Kokoruda, who serves on the Select Committee on Children and the Education Committee, sit on the Appropriations Committee, while Doyle is chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
“One of the most farreaching problems” the community now faces is the impact of changes to Care 4 Kids eligibility rules that started Dec. 31 for the program that subsidizes quality child care for qualififed working parents,” said Sheila Daniels, a city Board of Education member.
With 2,000 state families now wait-listed for the program, negative ripples will extend to other small businesses, such as day care providers and others that now rely on the income stream to operate. Aside from young children and families, all businesses that rely on employees using the program will be negatively affected, Greenberg said.
Enrollment closed due to a $33 million state budget shortfall after a federal change in how the program is funded, now based on a 12-month cycle, as opposed to eight previously, according to Connecticut’s Office of Early Childhood. The change was a good one, Greenberg said. But the unintended consequeneces of the change at the state funding level may become very costly over time, she added.
“The cuts to Care 4 Kids will have far-reaching effects,” said Daniels, stressing the importance of early childhood readiness programs related to special education costs for school districts.
“If we lose Care 4 Kids, we lose a parent from the workplace,” added Greenberg. Meanwhile, schools and towns will eventually bear the burden of higher special education costs due to lack of early intervention, she said.
“How do you begin to look at programs that help parents and small business,” asked Greenberg. “What happens when a personal care attendant doesn’t show up for work?”
Ultimately, the School Readiness Grant program may be undermined, said Daniels. Programs may decide not to participate this spring if they lose Care 4 Kids funding, she added.
Middletown Superintendent of Schools Patricia Charles asked legislators to be mindful of unfunded mandates that often impose significant costs on the district.
In Madison, where the town is expecting a $1 million shortfall in Education Cost Spending funds, as much as $300,000 in savings via mandate relief could be implemented immediately by the town’s finance director, Kokoruda said.
Middletown stands to lose $246,417 in ECS funding, a 1.2 percent reduction in state aid.
Doyle suggested compiling a list of mandates where savings could be found. “Remember, every mandate has its opponents and supporters,” he said. “There are lobbyists.”
The budget work ahead is “significant because it comes after many budget cuts,” said Lesser.
The time for “easy solutions is over. It’s slash services or raise revenue,” added Lesser. “Those are the choices. That’s it.”
The coalition meets from 9 to 10:15 a.m. the second Thursday of the month, September through May.