by Brandon Whiting, Connecticut Inside Investigator
Mar. 28, 2024
While education and policy advocates took to today’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee meeting in support of HB 5002, a wide-sweeping child care bill, Jeffrey Beckham, Secretary of the State’s Office of Policy and Management (OPM), took aim at the bill in his written testimony which vehemently opposed it.
The bill would allot $50 million to the State’s recently created Early Childhood Education Fund, and authorize the State Bond Commission to issue state bonds of up to $50 million in support of the Fund. Proceeds made from the sale of these bonds would go to the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) to support early childcare and childhood education programs. Furthermore, the bill would establish a pilot Tri-Share Child Care program in New London County aiming to reduce the cost of early childcare and education services and create a child care and education services grant program under the purview of the OCE.
“[If passed] Connecticut would again be a leader in the country in investing its own state funds for childcare,” said Lea Woods, Senior Policy Associate of the Century Foundation, who testified in support of the bill.
Read more in Connecticut Inside Investigator