An important alert from our colleagues at the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance (CECA) — please join with us in supporting this essential program!
PROTECT CONNECTICUT’S CHILD CARE
1. November 16, 10:30 a.m., CECA ADVOCACY COMMITTEE meeting followed by meetings with legislators
2. November 29, 3 – 4 p.m., RALLY at the Capitol, 300 Capitol Ave. Hartford kids, parents, providers
3. December 7, 10 a.m., PARENT & PROVIDER FORUM at the Legislative Office Building,
Connecticut’s childcare subsidy program Care4Kids is projecting a loss of nearly $15 million! This means as many as 5,000 families could lose their subsidies for 8,300 children by the end of June.
The Facts
● Last year Congress changed the law to improve the Care4kids program. Those improvements drove up the cost of the program because families are getting help for a longer period.
● The latest projections have Care4kids running a substantial budget deficit ($14.8 million)
● The program is already closed to new applicants (except families on TANF in the last 5 years).
● Unless money is transferred from another part of state government, the only other way to close the projected deficit is reduce spending by cutting off families who are currently using the program.
● This means that families will be cut off when they hit their annual redetermination
● On average, about 900 families come up for redetermination each month. On average each family has 1.5 children. This means that more than 1,300 children could lose their subsidy each month until the end of the fiscal year (June 30, 2017)
● The plan to start terminating families would start with the posting of a 30 day notice on the CTcare4kids.org web page probably shortly after the election.
● As many as 5000 families and 8,000 children could lose their childcare!
● One third of the Care4Kids caseload are school-age children. (As of August 2016)
● For more info, check our blog at: ctafterschoolnetwork.org/blog/
Care4Kids – Connecticut’s child care subsidy program for low-income families – is facing a serious crisis. The state Office of Fiscal Analysis recently reported that despite eligibility cuts in August, there is a potential deficiency in the program. This issue was also addressed at a meeting of the state’s Early Childhood Cabinet, and reported on in articles in CTNewsJunkie and CT Mirror. We must not balance the deficit on the backs of children by cutting families from the program. We must prioritize keeping children out of poverty.
You can help speak out against further cuts by doing the following things:
1) Sign the petition HERE
2) Call the Governor and your State Legislators, see more information HERE
3) Forward this blog post to your contacts