One family’s day in the legislative sun, for a cause

HARTFORD — Seated just behind the rows of state Senators in the well of the House of Representatives, Jennifer and Richard Rodriguez, sat quietly with their daughter, 7-month-old Leahni, absorbed in Gov. Ned Lamont’s State of the State speech.

Lamont had invited them. Then he turned and addressed them directly.

“Jennifer, Richard, you just told me the story about how if you’d taken that small raise, if you did a little more overtime, you would have lost all of the benefits of Care 4 Kids, you would have lost money doing it, and instead we made it easier for middle class families to afford it so that your beautiful daughter, you’ll know, will have a great place, a safe place, while you’re hard at work,” Lamont said.

The entire chamber of legislators rose to offer the family a standing ovation.

As the sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows on the first day of the legislative session, they took in a moment they had never imagined.

“It was a big experience for us,” Richard Rodriguez said. “We felt really appreciated for that. My wife is a day care teacher, and it means a lot to her especially because she has been trying to get more help not just for us but for other people in the middle class. Our story, that we make too much so we didn’t qualify for care but we couldn’t afford to pay for daycare, isn’t that unusual.”

The Rodriguez family lives in New Haven, where he works at CarMax, a used car dealership, and she is the lead teacher at the non-profit childcare center, Hope for New Haven. Their oldest daughter is 9 and in public school, and their middle daughter, who is 4, is in school part time, but requires day care the rest of the time.

Even with a reduced rate at the day care where she works, affording childcare for three children, which they need so they can both work full time to pay rent and all of their bills, is a stretch.

They’re one of tens of thousands of families in Connecticut and millions across the nation facing the same dilemma as preschool childcare costs rise quickly.

Without assistance through the Kids 4 Care program, Richard say they would pay $300 to $400 per week for childcare. Last fall, Lamont announced a change to the program that raised the bar for a family’s average income to qualify for the assistance and not lose the subsidy, and made a small change to the program that doesn’t immediately disqualify families from the program if they get a small raise or work overtime that raises their income beyond the threshold.

A modest raise of $50 a week would not make up the difference for the cost of childcare but it would have previously disqualified the family from receiving the subsidy, effective immediately.