Hartford looks to become first city in Connecticut to offer universal child care

Expanding access to child care was a focus of Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam’s State of the City address on Monday.

He’s proposing to eventually offer universal child care for families in the city.

“We want to be the first city in the state to provide universal child care to our residents,” Mayor Arulampalam said. “Because it’s so needed in these times when so many people are just struggling to get by, struggling with the cost of child care, we want to make sure that residents in Hartford and families in Hartford are taken care of.”

The mayor says the biggest challenge is increasing slots for children aged birth to three years old.

“We’re going to speak to providers themselves. We’re gonna go to child care centers. We’re going to go to, home daycares,” Arulampalam said. “We’re gonna say, ‘What will it take to increase the number of child care slots?’”

At this point, city officials are still looking into the extent of the need and the cost.

The plan also includes working with the state.

Last year, the Early Childhood Education Endowment was created to help more kids enroll.

“Now we’re in implementation, and that means we still need funding for this year,” said Eva Bermudez Zimmerman from Child Care for CT.

Advocates are pushing for that during this legislative session amid a shortage of slots and childcare workers.

“The only way to do that, to get more slots available, means really proposing competitive rates, really livable wage rates for this workforce, and opening up new child care spaces,” Bermudez Zimmerman said.

We’re told child care for infants can cost $23,000 a year.

And right now, the price for Hartford’s current programs is on a sliding scale.

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