The Erosion of Child Care Funding for Working Families in Connecticut

This report describes how Connecticut’s current vision that all children enter kindergarten ready for school success and the related new investments in early care and education, are being more than offset by insufficient funding, and in some cases funding cuts for related programs, specifically State Funded Centers, School Readiness and Care4Kids. Cuts in funding to the Care4Kids program (reduced by nearly 40% from FY02 to FY05) coupled with unequal payment rates across state agencies for similar services ($5,500 from DSS as compared to $7,500 from SDE per child) and no cost of living increases for State Funded Centers have actually driven programs into deficit, requiring them to borrow money just to make payroll.