A recent state report confirmed what parents of young children everywhere in Connecticut can also likely confirm — our state needs to do so much more to help provide child care for infants, toddlers and pre-kindergarteners.

A few months ago, when the Office of Early Childhood released its Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Care, it reconfirmed that one of the biggest issues in our state remains the gulf in childcare support offered versus the needs of working families. It’s an issue that requires attention, as its impacts extend well past those families of young children and impact our workforce, our economy, and the future of our state. As the Senate Chair of the Committee on Children, with the 2024 legislative session just a few weeks in, the report was not lost on me.

Before going further, I do want to highlight that in the wake of the pandemic, our state worked hard to keep child care sites open and caring for children, supporting child care systems. In the last few years, Connecticut invested hundreds of millions of dollars into childcare and lost just 1 percent of its child care capacity, compared to the average state losing 9 percent. Thousands of families were able to continue to access child care, wages grew and state leaders worked to support parents and providers alike.

As always, though, more can be done and more should be done for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being that with increasing demands on working parents, childcare has never been more important. It allows parents to be able to accommodate non-traditional working schedules and especially supports single-parent households, which represent nearly one-quarter of Connecticut families. Without childcare, parents lose hours and sometimes jobs in order to care for their children, which harms those households and our state’s economy.

According to the Blue Ribbon Panel’s report, Connecticut’s lack of a robust and fully available child care ecosystem is responsible for the loss of $1.5 billion in our economy. As well, we know that investment in children in their formative years brings financial returns of up to 13 percent over time, which ensures that the tax dollars spent will in turn more than pay for themselves.

A lack of services hurts families and employers alike, forcing qualified and talented workers to leave their job or quit the workforce — one in five parents has quit a job or been fired due to issues with child care — which leaves workplaces without the full staffing levels they need to thrive. Nationally, this issue costs parents and businesses more than $100 billion annually.

Beyond the economic factors, childcare is vital for the development of children’s brains. In the first year of life, a child’s brain is creating one million synapses per second, and 80 percent of brain growth is complete by age three. Pre-kindergarten, with learning and socialization, is incredibly important for children to help them reach their full potential. In fact, states which underinvest in early childhood education often see higher long-term social costs, and these most often impact the families with the fewest resources.

It’s simple: Connecticut needs more childcare to support our families, our economy and our future generations. So how do we get there?

I will be listening closely to my colleagues as we work together to develop the solutions necessary to get there. Many of them are already laid out in the Panel’s four-point system of suggestions: investing in and supporting workforce development standards (bringing more staff to the industry and increasing capacity); ensuring access for all families (providing affordable care for all families, including low and middle-income ones); developing an early childhood education system to maximize available resources; and building a funding system that’s sustainable and aimed toward the future.

The Panel determined that if these goals are accomplished, as many as 20,000 additional women with young children could enter or re-enter the workforce, with exponentially more children able to access early care. In accessing that early care, children will have early childhood preparation, improving their outcomes in future education and wellness. Businesses will see better productivity, which benefits our economy and our state.

This report and the Panel’s work are admirable and in direct support of our state, but accomplishing the report’s findings will be challenging when reflecting the realities of the state’s budget and its spending guardrails. Governor Lamont’s recent budget proposal for early childhood education funded a number of these proposals, but there are more that need to be addressed to achieve the outcomes put forward by the report. Legislators will need to find solutions to support as many of these needs as possible, and I’ll provide updates as session continues.

It’s never easy accomplishing hefty goals, especially in a short session which is more of a sprint than a marathon, but I’m looking forward to the challenge, as whatever successes we accomplish will benefit our state for years to come.