The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
After Harris visit, GOP leaders want a say in Lamont’s $210M plan for child care
Gov. Ned Lamont unveiled plans Friday that would invest $210 million in federal funding in Connecticut’s child care services.
The announcement came during a visit to New Haven by Vice President Kamala Harris, which highlighted the state’s investments in education and child care with the latest rounds of coronavirus relief.
Harris said the pandemic has highlighted “fractures and the fissures and the fault lines in our systems,” and offered praise for how the state plans to spend its latest round of funding from the American Rescue Plan, President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill, the Associated Press reported.
Harris visited the Boys & Girls Club of New Haven before later going to the West Haven Child Development Center.
Overall, members of the state’s Republican Caucus appeared happy with the vice president’s recognition of the state.
“I mean I think it’s great that we had our vice president visiting in New Haven yesterday,” state House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora said.
The North Branford state representative said he was “glad to see her putting a spotlight on our children,” who he said were the “most impacted” by the disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Lamont’s plan, as detailed in a statement released by the governor’s office Friday afternoon, would split funding into three areas.
The first would direct $50 million to pay for child care for parents who are attending college or a workforce training program. The funding would last for two years and provide child care through the Connecticut’s Care 4 Kids program, the governor’s office said.
The second area would package $120 million in funding as grants to “struggling child care businesses that have been hit hard by the impact of the pandemic,” the statement from Lamont’s office said. The money would also be “weighted” to favor programs in underserved areas “hardest hit by COVID-19,” the governor’s office said.
The third area would earmark $26 million over two years that would “pay substantially higher market rates” for child care programs certified by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association for Family Child Care. Another $6 million will support child care programs looking to achieve that accreditation.
That funding comes on top of the $8 million the governor had previously announced to pay for Care 4 Kids family fees for families receiving child care subsidies from April 1 through Sept. 30, rounding out the $210 million.
Commissioner Beth Bye of the Office of Early Childhood said the details of the governor’s plan have been in the works for a long time.
“But the American rescue plan allows us to really commit to this for two years,” she said Saturday in a phone interview. “These changes are really good for families and really good for the child care system,” she said Saturday in a phone interview.
She noted that for many families, the cost of child care for two kids could easily cost more than their parents’ mortgage. That, coupled with student loan debt, creates a financial drag on families that also means they have less disposable income. “It doesn’t just hold the families back, it holds back the whole economy,” Bye said.
She said the state will also need to confront issues of pay for child care workers, most of whom are women, many of them women of color. “Like other women’s work it’s been incredibly undervalued,” noting the vice president’s visit highlighted that issue.
Candelora said the funding plan will need the approval of the legislature.
He said the “stabilization” grants in the governor’s proposal are important. “We need to address the fact that we have 40,000 day care slots that have disappeared in the state of Connecticut and how do we bring that back,” Candelora said.
But he also criticized the state’s certification process for child care workers, which he said the legislature has opted to delay rather than implement, and is too onerous for workers who can expect to be paid around $15 to $16 an hour. “Somehow we either have to subsidize the degrees in order to get the certification, or we need to change the requirements,” he said.
State Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, echoed Candelora’s call Saturday for Lamont to work with the General Assembly, especially when federal funding is used. Child care and the issue of poverty are important.
“Obviously these are real needs,” Kelly said in a phone interview. “What the federal money offers is a real and unique opportunity for Connecticut’s future and it’s a chance to invest in the long-term that can set Connecticut up for success, relieving some of the burdens, like middle-class child care and job development for the postCOVID 21st century.”
“And it’s a real opportunity to solve the sluggish economy, where we are last in job growth,” Kelly added. “This can both reposition Connecticut in the pandemic and get us in better position going forward.”