Gov. Lamont promotes $300 million plan for free preschool

Yahoo

12-03-2025

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (WTNH) — Gov. Ned Lamont hit the road on Wednesday, visiting New Britain to promote a $300 million plan he says will deliver free preschool for many of the state's working and middle class families.
'We've got to make sure we take the lead here in the state of Connecticut,' Lamont said in remarks delivered at a preschool center on the campus of Central Connecticut State University.
Advocates, parents push for increased protections after Muslim twin sisters were assaulted at Waterbury middle school
The governor's plan will make preschool free for families earning less than $100,000 per year. The head of the state's Office of Early Childhood said the funds will take aim at the key factors driving up costs and limiting space in Connecticut's childcare centers. The funding proposal comes as the state still struggles to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on the childcare industry and the possibility of cuts from Washington D.C.
'This is an emergency,' Beth Bye, the head of the Office of Early Childhood, said.
In order to become law, the governor's plan will first have to win approval in the state legislature – where it has been met with strong criticism from Republicans and polite skepticism from some Democrats.
Republicans have been particularly critical of the mechanism Lamont intends to use to fund his proposal. They say the use of an off-budget endowment fund seeded with $300 million from the state's surplus is intended to circumvent the system of budget controls called 'fiscal guardrails' that govern spending done within the budget.
'He's using preschool students as a guise to create a slush fund,' State Sen. Steve Harding, the minority leader of the State Senate, said.
That criticism echoes similar charges levelled by Republicans against Lamont last week, when he approved the creation of an additional off-budget account to spend more than $40 million on special education and nonprofit groups. Off-budget accounts, Republicans argue, circumvent controls meant to rein in state spending.
While Harding objects to the mechanism of the spending, he also reiterated that his caucus supports finding money within the budget to fund preschool programs – perhaps by redirecting funds that would be otherwise used to raise the salaries of the state's unionized workforce.
'Let's prioritize that in-budget, within the confines of the budget, and not use slush funds,' Harding said of funding for preschool programs.
In addition to criticism from Republicans, the governor is also facing calls from many within his own party to loosen the state's system of budget controls, often called fiscal guardrails, to spend more on a host of social services – not just preschool.
As he arrived at the preschool press conference in New Britain, Lamont was greeted by a small crowd of CCSU students and staff urging him to increase state spending on higher education. Their calls are echoed my progressive members of the state legislature.
'We do have to create more flexibility in these fiscal guardrails to make sure that we're responding to how people are struggling,' State Rep. Kate Farrar, a leading voice in the push to loosen the state's purse strings, said.
Farrar and her Democratic colleagues in the state House have introduced a childcare plan of their own. Farrar said that plan calls for more initial spending than the governor's plan, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars of borrowing to fund long-term upgrades to childcare facilities.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.