Budget Update
From what we understand, there will be no budget plan to vote on by the end of the fiscal year, which means that starting July 1, Governor Malloy will have authority over the budget to keep the state running until an actual budget is passed. That means Care4Kids remains closed, which will impact families and child care providers who rely on it. Governor Malloy has released a "Resource Allocation Plan" for FY 2018. To read more about it, click HERE. Office of Early Childhood line items can be found on page 79 of the document. Notably, the plan keeps child care services (School Readiness and CDCs), annualizes Birth-3 funding, cuts Care4Kids as originally proposed ($7.4 million), eliminates Community Plans and Even Start, and there's a Children's Trust Fund increase to fund Help Me Grow. PLEASE CLICK ON THE GRAPHIC TO WATCH AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.
Time is running out to be heard. PLEASE contact your legislators!
CALL, EMAIL/FACEBOOK, WRITE, REPEAT
Messages below are suggestions – feel free to write your own!
1. Call your legislators (1 phone call each to your State Senator and State Representative)
Phone Message: My name is (your name). I am (director, teacher, parent) at (name of center) in (location). Please help to ensure Care4Kids is funded at $155 million in the budget. Care4Kids helps families afford child care. With the state facing a $5 billion deficit, you must raise revenue to make this happen. Please do that and fund Care4Kids.
Senate Democrats - 860-240-8600 or 800-842-1420
Senate Republicans - 860-240-8800 or 800-842-1421
House Democrats - 860-240-8585 or 800-842-8267
House Republicans - 860-240-8700 or 800-842-1423
2. Email your legislators. Thanks to the YMCA's for letting us use their easy tool. Fill out the form and an email will automatically be sent to your state legislators
3. Use Facebook's Town Hall app. Great how to use video Type this message (or write your own):
Please help to ensure that Care4Kids, the state’s child care subsidy, is funded. $155 million is needed to serve the same number of children as the program served in August of last year. Care4Kids helps children get early education and parents to work. With the state facing a $5 billion deficit, you must raise revenue to make this happen. Please do that and fund Care4Kids.
4. Twitter. Many legislators use twitter. Send them a tweet.
@insert your legislator Over 6,000 have already lost Care4Kids. More revenue needed to support Care4Kids in the budget. #fairbudget
What Passed, What Didn't, in the 2017 Legislative Session (Continued)
We have an addendum to "what passed, what didn't" during the 2017 session. There are changes made to the child car seat restraint laws. It appeared the original bill (HB 6956) wasn't called before the session ended, but was rolled into a larger bill (HB 7055), now Public Act 17-230. Public Act 17-230 (page 13) addresses weight and age requirements for rear-facing, front-facing and booster seat transportation for children. To see the bill progression, click HERE.
Help Protect Dental Medicaid
Our friends at COHI want to protect Dental Medicaid and we are helping spread the word. Please contact your legislators and urge them to support revenue increases, such as: sugary beverage tax, modernizing the sales tax system, and reforming wealth and income taxes. Share with them any stories you have regarding Dental Medicaid success stories. Along with your own legislators, please contact the leaders in the General Assembly:
Senator Looney - 1-800-842-1420 or by email
Senator Fasano - 1-800-842-1421 or by email
Senator Duff - 203-840-1333 or by email - [email protected]
Rep. Aresimowicz - 800-842-8267 or by email - [email protected]
Rep. Ritter - 800-842-8267 or by email - [email protected]
Rep. Klarides - 800-842-1423 or by email
NWLC Updates
The National Women's Law Center has a variety of information and asks for advocates and seek our help.The first ask is regarding "Child Care Now." This is a large-scale campaign effort to support a push for massively increased state and federal investments to expand access to high-quality child care for all children that need it and improve compensation for child care providers. In light of the current Administration’s focus on the issue and our desire to make real progress, it is clear that we all need to commit to a long term, ongoing effort to move child care to the top of the priority list for Congress as well as state and local governments. To help to move this forward, NWLC will be launching an online campaign hub in July. In order to make child care a much more visible issue, the campaign will need all an outpouring of grassroots and grass tops support. To that end, please join a long list of national, state, and local group signing on to support and work as partners – click here to add your organization’s name! Let’s make this a very long list and ensure that every state is represented. Groups that commit to being a part of this campaign will be listed on the website. See the campaign description below:
Child Care Now is a campaign of child care advocates and allies developed by the National Women's Law Center focused on raising awareness among policymakers and the public about the child care challenges facing America today, including affordability, quality, and provider compensation. Child Care Now provides tools and resources to a diverse group of stakeholders to take action to elevate child care as a national priority. Together with a community of leaders and allies, Child Care Now aims to convince policymakers to make a significant financial investment to expand access to high-quality child care, enabling parents to work and giving children access to the high-quality care they need to succeed.
The online hub, hosted on the NWLC website, will feature tools, resources, and easy ways to take action or contact your Members of Congress.
2) There will be an AHCA webinar at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, June 27. As a follow-up to Georgetown’s study on the impact potential Medicaid cuts will have on rural children and families, CLASP is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, June 27 at 3:00 p.m. ET that examines this important research in in the context of the American Health Care Act and ongoing debates on Capitol Hill around health care coverage for young children.
Support for the Alliance comes from of our members and our funders: The William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund, Connecticut Health Foundation, Children's Fund of Connecticut, CT Early Childhood Funder Collaborative, a project of CT Council of Philanthropy; Connecticut Community Foundation; Community Foundation of Greater New Britain; Community Foundation of Greater New Haven; The Fund for Greater Hartford; and The Eder Family Foundation