by Karla Ciaglo
HARTFORD, CT — Less than a year after Connecticut committed $300 million to overhaul its child care system, thousands of families remained on a waitlist for subsidies, exposing a gap between the state’s long-term investment and immediate need, advocates said.
Lawmakers and advocates on Wednesday called for passage of Senate Bill 265, which would transfer $70 million from the state’s Federal Cuts Response Fund to the Office of Early Childhood before June 30, with most of the funding directed to the CT Care 4 Kids subsidy program.
The legislation is designed to stabilize the system in the short term while the state’s child care endowment — created last year using surplus funds and intended to support expansions like Early Start CT — is still being implemented.
“The endowment is a future solution,” said Maryam Sutton, chief operating officer of the Friends Center for Children. “The waitlist is a present crisis.”
Announced in July 2025, the $300 million endowment was intended to expand access to free or reduced-cost early childhood care, particularly for families earning under $100,000, and to create a more stable funding source less vulnerable to annual budget fluctuations.
State Rep. Corey Paris, D-Stamford and co-chair of the legislature’s Committee on Children, said failing to act would deepen the disconnect between the state’s commitments and families’ realities.
“We’re telling families and providers they’re on their own,” Paris said. “We can not talk about raising the greatest generation of young people in the state of Connecticut, a great place for us to have an expansive universal child care program that we are all working towards, and not actually fund care for kids.”
An estimated 164,000 children need childcare and only 60,000 were approved, advocates said.
In November 2025, state officials pointed to the launch of Early Start CT — including new subsidized slots and an 8% increase in provider payment rates — as a “transformative expansion” of the system. The program broadened eligibility, offering free care to families earning under $100,000 and capped costs for those earning up to $150,000.
But advocates and legislators say those long-term investments have yet to translate into immediate relief for families in need who have found themselves currently on a waitlist.
More than 3,000 households remain without Care 4 Kids assistance, leaving parents to cover costs that can exceed $3000 per month or risk losing care altogether.
Senate Bill 265 would allocate $65 million to the child care subsidy program, established under Section 17b-749 of the general statutes, to cover children currently on the waitlist, prioritizing families with other children already enrolled and those with special needs. Any remaining funds would support provider stabilization, workforce recruitment and retention, expanded access, and improvements in capacity and quality.
An additional $5 million would be distributed to licensed providers in eastern Connecticut, where lawmakers have identified regional disparities in access, workforce shortages, and provider capacity.
Advocates and legislators said those sacrifices extend beyond finances, with providers taking on personal debt and risking long-term financial stability to keep their businesses open.
State Rep. Kate Farrar speaks about childcare costs at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on March 25, 2026. Credit: Karla Ciaglo / CTNewsJunkie
State Rep. Kate Farrar, D-West Hartford, said educators, families, and providers deserve a system that works, noting that child care challenges also affect hiring and employment for businesses.
“Businesses who are desperately trying to recruit and retain employees deserve an early childhood education system that works,” she said.
Georgia Goldburn, executive director of Hope For New Haven and co-founder of Cercle, said that in some families, one child is enrolled in the Care 4 Kids program while siblings remain on the waitlist, forcing parents to continue making difficult workforce decisions.
“It’s a workforce issue, and we are losing as a state by not enabling our people to work, be productive, and afford to live in Connecticut,” she said.
Parents unable to secure care often reduce work hours or leave jobs entirely, contributing to billions in annual economic losses tied to child care gaps in Connecticut — including at least $1.5 billion linked to infant and toddler care alone, according to a 2023 Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Care Report.
Maria Reyes, president of the Connecticut State Child Care Association-SEIU, a union representing 4,000 family child care home providers, said those impacts disproportionately fall on women, who are more likely to leave the workforce when care is unavailable.
Reyes said some providers are operating at a loss, taking on debt, or accepting partial payments from families who cannot afford full tuition.
“The system is being held together by personal sacrifice,” she said. “These are not numbers on a spreadsheet. These are real parents who need care today and not eight months from now.”
Jasmin Rivera, a CT Transit worker and single mother, said she is on the Care 4 Kids waitlist and behind on child care payments. To maintain her daughter’s enrollment, she used her tax refund to pay months in advance
“It’s vital for children and families to get the support that they need so that they can continue to provide for their families,” she said.