♪ > > This week in the wheelhouse.

> > In community.

> > Rose in federal nonprofits in child care system.

On the break.

♪ > > Warren, > > public on Frankie Graziano.

This is the wheelhouse show that connects politics.

The people weve got your weekly dose of politics in Connecticut and beyond right here.

Governor Ned Lamont got a plan for universal Pre-K later in the hour.

Connecticut public State government the border.

Okay.

Lets Abbott.

going join me to talk about how the plants next up.

But first.

President Donald Trump issued an order that froze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans.

Are we back and wild.

A freeze has since been rescinded.

Some nonprofit organizations are still unable to access funds, non-profit organizations across the state and country are scrambling to understand when and if they will regain financial support from the government.

With me this hour, David Farenthold.

Investigative reporter for The New York Times.

David, thanks for joining us.

Thanks having me.

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Also with out, Spider-Man reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media group.

Alex, Great to have you with us.

Thanks for having Greg.

Great to see you.

You can join the conversation.

8, 8, 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, David, I'm gonna throw the first question at you here.

The Trump administration briefly froze all federal grant spending.

But then backtracked and rescinded the order.

Why was this order given in the first place?

At least as far as we know?

> > But what they said was they wanted to to pause all spending, all outgoing grants and to figure out which of the grants by later the president's executive orders member at the time, the president.

But this is sort of slew of executive orders that were kind of vague.

But but obviously quite ambitious.

And so that was says the sense that maybe they were a lot of brands out there that violated with those were, but they they need time to figured that out.

In the meantime, didn't want to spend one more dollar.

It turned out that was sort of legally a stupid strategy.

But it's the approach that they've taken is still continuing review that they started is still continuing.

Non-profit organizations, not the only targets of federal funding freezes, but there are uniquely vulnerable.

So why is that?

> > I think people have the sense it's unusual for a nonprofit to get money from the federal government.

In fact, about a 35,000 us nonprofits get more than half of their funding from government.

And that's not charity in the sense that like the governor just giving the money and say, hey, do whatever with it.

This is these basically contractors that the are nonprofits are like a for-profit in the sense that being hired to do a job and the way those contractors we work as it's not like like a lottery winner like game show win when they give your money right up front.

It's it's like sort of endless series of expense reports Obama nonprofit.

That's, you know, building trails in the forest.

I go out there, bill.

My trails spend the money that I come to the U.S. government said, hey, look, I spent, you know, $3500 last week.

I need to get the money out of my grant to reimburse myself so that you can see the problem, the air, a lot of these nonprofits that are out there doing the work, the work continues and they have a week or a month or more of backed up bills that they have been told to expect to be reimbursed for.

And now all of a sudden they can't be.

So they're just holding this huge amount of debt or unpaid bills on their own balance sheet.

> > And that's kind of what they're struggling with and reeling because of that uncertainty.

I would imagine.

That's right.

I mean, he's what were not.

Again, these were not donations.

These were its on contract with federal government.

And they said, OK, we're going to do this work and we're going to pay you.

And now all of sudden without explanation, the money just stops flowing into that these groups because they don't get all of their money up front.

They don't have a huge financial cushion to absorb that.

So they were talking about laying off people cutting back services, doing less of the work they do because they they you know, they were running out of money very fast.

Alex, want to bring you in here to talk about the local impact of Trump's actions on nonprofit organizations and if they're feeling it at the state level here are you seeing this locally?

> > Yeah, I mean, the biggest impact I think was just the absolute chaos, particularly of that first day when they announced this policy, every nonprofit person in Connecticut, I talked to described the same thing, just frantic texting calls and trying to get in touch with their elected representatives and trying to get in touch with their staff to developing contingency plans.

If our money goes away, what do we do?

I mean, what are we for lower fire?

And when just really chaotic and some of the cases, as David alluded to the portals where they access their their funding.

We're down so that only cost more panic.

I think once the Trump administration rescinded that policy the following day.

Everybody could sort of take a deep breath, but there's still this sort of looming specter of what's going to happen next.

That has everybody a little bit nervous.

You know, in some cases such as iris, the refugee resettlement groups, the Trump administration's policies have already made a big difference.

They had lay off 20% of their staff could potentially cut even further.

So there have definitely been some pretty noticeable and candidates of our.

> > Very happy that brought up iris and the work that they do because we're going hear from Maggie Mitchell, Salem a little bit later.

Thank you for that foreshadowing sort of.

But, David, I want to come back to you get a sense of whether or not this sounds familiar and tie it to kind of that national scope.

That's right.

The things that people can make an etiquette experience that sort of chaos, a question about who they have to lay off with The fire.

> > That's happening everywhere.

It's red states and blue states.

It's all around the country and the important to know is that yes, the the Trump administration pulled back the memo that froze the funds just a couple days after they put it out.

Then there's been a couple of judges that came out and said, you know, just for sure that was an illegal approach.

You can do that.

Well, they said at least that they stopped it.

But the problem is that the Trump administration has kept some from funds frozen.

Some of these nonprofits still haven't gotten their money back despite the end of the memo, despite the judge's rulings and it appears that they may never get their money back, but a lot of them are still stuck in this limbo.

And I was talked about which was, you know, they don't know what happened to them.

They don't know how long this is going to last.

In a note that says a glitch or this is just what they've lost their money forever and the people that normally communicate within the government, they're they're grant officers when they call them either.

Those people have been fired or they have been.

they've said, look, we don't know more than you do.

We can't tell you anymore.

You know, just wait, maybe something will happen.

> > I believe the story that you recently wrote in The Times is Trump's attempt to freeze grant funding leaves nonprofits, reeling.

And I want to point people to that story.

There's a few personal stories and there you took us to Pennsylvania and Vermont.

Could you shed light on one or 2 of those stories, if you can, and just introduce us to the people that are being impacted.

Sure.

The so many of them.

I tell you one of the ones that the striking ones to be actually was Missouri.

> > There was the school district that had they had ordered electric school buses under a program.

The Biden administration set up.

They got a grant from the federal government.

9.5 million dollars to buy electric school buses about American buses.

They were made in North Carolina.

They're being they're slow down, but a hurricane last year.

But they're be being delivered.

Finally, they were going to get here in the last week of January.

at that point with Trump takes office, 21 of the buses are just they're almost within reach their 50 miles away distributors law in Illinois and all of a sudden they can't get the money, the money they were going to pull out their grant money to use to finally make the final payment on the buses is locked.

Another stuck there.

The buses are they are.

They're almost you know, they're so close.

They can touch them, but they can't use them that kind of limbo.

But so many different organizations have been left in like, OK, well, we're going to get these buses are we never going to get them like have to start planning for a future where we may never come in that kind of uncertainty.

You can see how it started.

Really destructive planning for a long period of time.

Alex is concerned about the status of funding and grants from the federal government > > Also come from the state as but well.

Nonprofits in Connecticut concerned that they won't get what they need out of the next biennium budget.

> > Yeah, I mean, it's interesting even if we leave aside everything that's happening at the federal government assume that all the federal money will be just the same nonprofits in Connecticut are still concerned.

they say that their funding real dollars has decreased in recent years.

Like many other institutions in Connecticut across the country, they relied heavily on money from the federal government pandemic relief from the American Rescue Plan Act that money is now gone.

So that has kind of left a hole in there, the budget.

So the state might increase funding a little bit.

But in the governor's budget, the state would not increase funding and not to cover all of that federal funding that is disappear.

So not profits are saying that even forget everything that's happening in the federal government at the federal level, they're in danger of having to having to cut having to scale back their services just based on what they're seeing in the governor posting budget and now they're still, you know, several months of negotiations to go.

That could certainly be resolve them.

Usually the way this works is the staked out a position in the not profits.

They got a position and was ultimately some sort of middle ground.

But to hear them that nonprofit alliance tell it things are pretty dire for a lot of their members they're going to need more money from somewhere.

obviously federal money started to disappear.

That would only exacerbate what they say is already a major problem.

So let's go there.

> > The future and this uncertainty.

It doesn't mean that just because you have uncertainty, you can't.

Kind of move ahead.

You have to provide these services so or at least you want to provide these services and beat it.

Organizations mission.

So David, how does this uncertainty kind of impact that ability to plan for the future?

> > What's really hard people to even planned for the near future for the next year.

But I think that what we're starting to see come into focus from the Trump administration tells us that if you are a nonprofit that belied on funding from a couple different sources, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the in for Inflation Reduction Act.

Climate Programs, dei programs in the federal government.

Your money is probably not coming back.

money they're going to do everything they can to try to shut it off in some cases going after nonprofits that already got money in trying to pull it back.

There's some really vote.

Nonprofit got huge amounts of money from the federal government under Biden to give away to greenhouse gas reduction projects.

The EPA is now trying to use the criminal law to pull that back.

So those those nonprofits, many of which staffed up build up the capacity because there was so much money coming out of the Biden administration.

Those winds are going make a really sharp cutback because that funding is not going come back.

I think from the federal or the state level.

So the we're going to see is this sort of class and nonprofits that have been used by federal government.

The dew kind of government work to do work in Louisville government, a really with their own, have to find other missions and sources of funding.

I'm just trying to think about the totality here in the scope.

So you're saying that there are definitely organizations that.

> > already being told like that's not coming any way near you.

Do we know about the scope in terms of percentage?

So like, is that a smaller amount of organizations that are not going to getting any of those funds coming back their way or are there some folks that are going to have sort of a financial fog and then the freezes going or excuse me, I think a better way to probably describe it would be like a hose like the hose the faucet or whatever is going to turn back on.

Is there a larger percentage of those that are going to have the faucet turned back on or is it a smaller percentage of that are going to not have money coming back.

> > I think there's a there's a concern that there will be, but a lot of people will lose their their federal financial lifeline.

That's because that we're dealing with not just with Trump and the changes he wants to make, but also with Elon Musk and doze.

You know, those folks are trying to cut pockets of money wherever they can, and they're calling all kinds of things, waste and fraud are not waste and fraud.

They're just things they disagree with.

But, you know, the limiting factor in the first Trump administration and things like this was Trump's own attention span.

He would be interested in this stuff in the need to get some distracted and go to something else and things would really change.

Musk attention span is something very different.

I don't know how long he's working at Doe's is going to last.

But as long as it does, he is in his people are very focused and they're cutting a lot of stuff.

So I think that, you know, your nonprofit that depends on federal grants for live your income.

You know, especially anything adjacent the things that Trump and must do like like Dei diversity, climate, you could really lose a huge portion of funding.

I think probably to depend on federal funding at all.

You know, even if it doesn't seem like it's going to be affected by this need to realize how unreliable the federal government seems to be as a partner.

> > One thing I want to just underscore that David mentioned is that in Connecticut and elsewhere, nonprofits, to a large extent sort of serve out full thing do that or a large part of it.

You know, like functions that the government.

He's been serving itself, it's sort of offloads to nonprofit.

So, you know, Foodshare in Connecticut, you know, feeds the hungry homeless shelters.

You know, you could imagine maybe an alternate world where the state or the federal government was more directly involved in But the way it works is they basically, you know, nonprofits to make sure that people are every night during the winter in Connecticut.

And if not profits, you know, go away or or lose their funding.

I mean, these are sort of services that that go away.

And I mean, it really, I think can be a life or death situation.

And in certain cases.

> > Life or death is a term that you just use and that kind of underscores a grim outlook that David and you just painted Alex here.

So I want to know if Connecticut's governor Ned Lamont is offering any guidance to nonprofit organizations about how to proceed or maybe even how to survive.

> > Yeah, the governor's approach to the whole Trump administration has been sort keep calm and carry where, as you know, we've seen some other Democrats in Connecticut be a little bit more, we asked to not question and he basically said doing what you're doing well, deal with the problems that they up on that initial day when the all funding appeared to be frozen.

You did talk about dipping into reserves into the red, rainy Day fund.

I think that would be like a real last case.

Worst case scenario.

would not.

I don't think the excited to do that.

So for now, the message is keep doing what you're and, you know, we'll see where it leads.

I got to ask you this and tell me if you don't know the answer.

That's fine.

> > But and then if you David, bring this to any other governor that might be going through something I think this is kind of a nuance that I want to dig in to hear a political kind of thing.

Could this be the governor either saying, you know, obviously we have to deal with this is they come up and maybe that could be a message to maybe an attorney general or something like that, too.

If they have to defend this in court, that could be one message or is this just more of a?

Of a way to talk these things through?

So that?

I don't know if it's massaging language or anything like that.

But maybe as a negotiating tactic if they have to negotiate with the Trump administration to kind of make sure that funds eventually do the faucet, I guess is the best analogy again to make sure that these do get turned on some point.

Can you just help me with that nuance a little bit.

> > Yeah, I mean, the strategy from what I can tell without too much inside Info is that.

Lamont wants to kind of keep a low profile.

He doesn't want to be the face of Anti-Trump resistance.

You know, it's possible we have seen the Trump administration doing officials in New York.

I Connecticut's governor doesn't want that to be in.

Doesn't want that to be Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has been sort of the more aggressive sort of attack I don't know to what extent Lamont and Tom are sort of coordinating that approach, but the way it has played out Lamont has been kind of careful what he said publicly.

seems like hesitant really aggressively get on potentially Trump's bad side where as time has really been you know.

Fallout.

Lawsuits all the time, are ugly and we > > And as we finish this up, going.

the least this segment.

David, are you seeing something similar or at least kind of relationships play out outside of a place like Connecticut.

Are you seeing other governors, other attorneys general kind of having 2?

I want to say play politics.

I don't know if it's a it or at least employ some kind of strategy has there has to be some kind of response to what's happening at federal level.

I think that's right.

There's a really bifurcated response between Democratic attorneys.

State attorneys general been very aggressive and really successful with suing the Trump administration in court getting these policies blocked or delayed.

> > And governors, I think that's partly because of the reasons you mentioned that like, you know, he has been targeting governors meeting, suing them over there immigration enforcement, but also trying to cut their funds.

You know, I think the governors are worried about selective funding that will help red states blue states.

I think also governors, Democratic governors see their opening as they don't want to seem to be hysterically or flexibly Anti-Trump, but they want to swoop in with Trump's moves backfired.

You know, when it becomes clear when they think it will become clear that Trump is bad, a governing and his cuts produced chaos and things that people don't like.

They want to step in as the alternative to people who know him make government work.

And I think at this point there's not much to gain by yelling about this stuff before we've seen this sort of real-world impact in before real people see the impact.

> > This is tremendous perspective that Alex and David are offering us this hour and I appreciate it very much.

Thank you for answering that question.

It kind of helps us in our mission to bring politics to the people and help people understand that.

New want thank you so much.

This is the wheelhouse.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

You're obviously listening to Alex Bowman reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media Group and David Farenthold, investigative reporter for The New York Times can join the conversation.

We want to hear from you, especially if you're impacted by federal funding freeze, you got to give us a call.

888-720-9677.

It is 70, 9, 6, 7, 7, after the break.

We're going to hear how organizations with mission statements that don't align with Trump's a culturally conservative agenda are planning for the futures.

This is the Connecticut public radio.

We'll be right back.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ This is the wheelhouse from Connecticut, public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano, non-profit organizations across the state and country are in limbo following President Trump's order to freeze off Ed or grant funding.

Spending this freeze has since been rescinded.

But the money isn't exactly flowing freely back into the coffers of the organizations that still rely on or maybe even at all as reporter Dave Unfair told the investigative reporter for New York Times and Alex reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media Group have kind of helped us understand this morning.

You can join the conversation, particularly if you work for nonprofit.

87 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 720-9677.

David in her first news conference as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Defended.

President Trump's federal funding pause saying that it would give the government time to weed out spending for woke gender issues and diversity programs that conflict with Trump's executive orders.

Ab nonprofit organizations with don't know why with Trump's agenda been impacted, more heavily would say at this time.

That's right.

Yes.

And we're even seeing group said mission is sort of not related to either one of those things still being pressured say.

> > What's on your Web site?

You know?

Yeah, okay.

So you're to work is to, you know, clear underbrush in Montana.

But does your website say you support diversity, equity inclusion?

So there's been a lot of pressure on groups that even not dedicated to the purposes.

Trump doesn't like to make sure they sort of swear off any ancillary connections to them.

So, yes, it's it's a it's particularly T > > This was a in progressive media.

So I just want say that in in in and out with that folks may say is more progressive.

I want to say that is there really these e-mails going around?

I would imagine that the though are asking people to I don't know if its niche but did to try to help us understand whether or not like you said that that organization that might be clearing brush and Montana is actually trying to do some undercover kind of work stuff.

Is this really happening at the federal level?

Are are Trump administration officials are federal government employees trying to get people to snitch people.

If they do this kind of work.

Well, to live in an effort to get people to sit within the federal government is one of the first things they did was to say, you know, okay, you know, we're going to close all the government dei offices and we want you government employee to tell us if somebody is secretly doing dei under some of their name or some dei staffer has.

> > Change their bio so they can stay on.

You know, there was there e-mail address is created.

going snitch on your colleagues.

But, you know, the more difficult thing for nonprofit says that some of them are getting these requested say we need you to certify that you your grant is in keeping with the president's executive orders.

And if it is say yes, if it's not been, you know, tell us how you're going to fix it or quit.

And without a lot of guidance that so they come to you and say, hey, you're nonprofits, grant is out of compliance and X Y Z ways there's a will you tell us you look at you and you decide, you know what, what?

are your grand is violating that?

And if you get it wrong, if interpret it one way and they interpret it another, you could be putting your grant a risk.

So these are high stakes conversations even talking about own organizations.

Alex, are you hearing similar stories from local organizations where they're trying to figure out how to > > kind of way through this mess or I guess.

they have.

You heard from any?

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I mean, maybe somebody doubling down and trying to to to to double down on their commitment.

> > Definitely.

I mean, there are organizations that I like David said, everybody is just kind of trying to figure out what dei means to the Trump administration and whether they I mean, you have groups that deal a lot with with, you know, marginalized communities.

is that inherently dei in the view of the Trump administration?

But then you also have organizations that are very proud and open that they do dei or something similar to it.

You know, community partners and is a an organization state including in the Hartford area that provides a lot of re-entry services to people getting out of jail in prison, you know in itself is not.

I don't think a particularly political or controversial mission, but there's a tab right there on their website.

I'm looking at right now that says Our dei journey.

It's right next to the about U.S. tab.

It's very important to them.

I talked to the executive director there.

That's right.

said.

Exactly about fines.

And she this is important to We're going to keep doing this.

We're not going to, you know, even if they're going to say that that that have on our website is going to cost us our federal funding.

This is part of their mission.

They believe in it and they want continue to live by that.

That kind this.

> > Shout out to Beth Hines and Deborah Gallo over there at the community Partners in action and just for further perspective, since we're on this.

These are people that have recently been incarcerated that are coming out are asking for help because either you have a situation where you might not have identification or you might not have access to a job or somebody may be looking at your record or something like that.

And this organization is helping people, particularly as they did a few years ago when there was a a fire at a place that they were living in.

They're just helping them with basic needs essentially.

So I think that really is illustrates the kind of perspective that you guys are talking about like what is woke at this point, what is maybe something that the Trump administration is looking at dei?

We spoke with a different organization here.

And Alex alluded to it earlier.

Maggie Mitchell's Salem, executive director of Iris, a nonprofit located in Connecticut.

Ira stance for integrated refugee and immigrant services.

They help refugees and other displaced people navigate the resettlement process, including securing housing employee, unemployment and more.

Maggie said Iris has taken extensive.

It's in the past few weeks.

Here she is explaining which executive orders have had the most profound impact.

> > One impacted those that had arrived in the last 90 days.

This is the most intense period of support, both human and financial that we offer to refugees on the refugees who are newly arrived.

And the other was for the Welcome Corps program, which actually people in Connecticut helped inspire because of work they did from 2014 to 2017 resettling Syrians and other refugees and so that welcome Corps program also had a stop work order and all work on that stopped 05:00PM.

And our team was let go at 06:00PM on Friday.

The 24th for the first 90 days.

That reception and placement program.

We are continuing to provide the support to those that have arrived while downsizing or staffing and drawing on private resources.

Provide what, 3, what we had anticipated several million dollars in federal resources.

We're going to do.

> > Iris has downsized their staff.

They're asking for more support from donors.

Again, it sounds like a rough couple of weeks for Iris and Maggie Mitchell, Salem.

Can you just respond to what we're hearing now?

> > Yeah, I mean, I their refugee resettlement, I mean, talk about area that doesn't really comport with the Trump administration's priorities.

You know, it's probably not surprising to anyone listening that that would be sort of one of the first organizations are types of organizations that that.

Took some hits and that Trump administration you know, I that's the beginning.

I think it's important to remember also that that not every, you know, nonprofit that we're talking about has mission that is really in any way.

You know, political about that.

Iris is inherently political, but but I mean, we're talking about soup kitchens were talking about homeless shelters.

You it's it's hitting everybody and iris.

I think it's sort of like right there on the front lines as an organization that does something that the Trump administration specifically doesn't.

really value I get we're saying out because it's almost like if you're even if you don't see yourself as political.

> > Right now, perception is reality for the Trump administration.

Nathan, from Old Saybrook is a color that is going to join us on the wheel house at this moment.

Can't wait to hear from you, Nathan.

Thank you for calling > > Yeah.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

I I am a member of the Alliance for nonprofits and I work for a wonderful organization in Middletown called Billy Community Services.

We are funded by State Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Department of Child and Families killing the families.

And we do receive federal funding to those organizations for work.

There's going to be a legislative presentation by the alliance days of the Legislature.

We're only asking for cost of living increase.

However, I salute the attorney general's activism and I would.

Governor Lamont would follow his lead and become more of an activist to protect the state he has a 12 and had 12.8 billion million dollar surplus in Connecticut, the largest per capita in the country.

And this would be perfect time for him to become more of an activist in support of state services and thank you so much for listening to the Lions.

> > Nathan, thank you so much for calling in on kind of not necessarily pivot, but I think I can sense of frustration in Athens voice, at least from the perspective that you have William Tong, who is more of in a position of action and he's able have these these go to court, for instance, a file lawsuits.

And what have you.

But the legislative process obviously works slowly so Alex, that I would imagine Governor Lamont and William Tong are on the same page.

It's just that the way that the governor has to kind of get to this reality is a little bit of a slower means and they have to negotiate this in a budget or does the governor not at all want to use any of this kind of money to support these groups help to tear it apart that way.

> > Yeah, I can't, you know, speak to what's inside the governor's had.

Obviously, I do you know, the Trump step in the budget stuff it sounds like Nathan has sort of 2 distinct.

Maybe critiques their frustrations with the governor.

mean, on the budget stuff Lamont is always a little bit more conservative.

He would rather put away a dollar, then spend a dollar at least at the margins.

This for years now been kind of the push-and-pull between him and fellow fellow Democrats.

And it's it's the case again this year where a lot of Democrats, a lot of advocates, nonprofits, education, people would like to see a little bit more spending.

The governor favors more saving.

We'll see where they wind up this spring.

> > Political recently reported that organization is tackling anything bolstered by the Inflation Reduction Act abide initiative.

David, you talked about this in the last segment are experiencing withholding of funding as well.

So as I understand that money's not coming back.

And if you can just again, kind of underscore what Alec talking about here on the local level.

We're going to have to imagine that state.

state governments are going to have to get involved because federal got money is not coming in this way, at least for the folks that are really impacted here on the Biden initiatives here, like the Inflation Reduction Act.

> > That's right.

lot of the question Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law.

A lot of what it did was give money out to people so they can do things and with the Trump administration is doing is the money that hasn't gone out the door yet.

They're trying to hold on to it.

And now in many cases, they're within their rights.

Their many of these contracts have a clause saying the government can just terminated the call for convenience so they could cancel the contract as long as make you whole up until the day they cancel it.

They can cancel for any reason.

The good news and the bad, the good news from the provinces.

A lot of this money was new money.

This was something was to was coming out flood of new money that was relatively recent.

So it's not like this is something you would have built your organization around for 10 years that suddenly gone the bad news is that the ones that got it?

This was a huge windfall for them, but they are also required to hire a bunch of people getting facilities.

Build new capacity.

And now just as they're starting to use that capacity, the money disappears.

So if they grew rapidly, they may have to shrink rapidly.

I don't think that states will step in to fill all the capacity they were going to get under the Biden administration.

But there there will probably be some support for them to sort of maintain the state they were out in 2022.

Or 2023.

> > So then we should be looking in the coming months.

David, too, you would say state legislatures or maybe Congress to kind of argue spending We should.

We look to the courts where where should we be naturally looking next.

Well, I think there's 2 places to look.

One is the way that members of Congress and governors, particularly from red states, but also from blue states.

> > Play and like helping turn money back on that have been turned off.

You know, there are people out there who will say we like it's already happening in some red states.

on the money from the federal government to build this new natural gas plant and its half-built.

We need the rest, the money to keep building.

And I think those people will get their request granted probably in the degree of closeness they are President Trump in 2 good way for him to sort of grant favors the people he likes the other thing that I think is more interesting long-term and just thinking about the political angle remember the Trump's first term as destructive as it seemed for people like me who are in Washington covering Washington and the rest of the country, not that much change was a lot of bluster and show here.

A lot of the services people experience a lot of the everyday life was not that much Didn't feel crazy.

If you lived in Montana, you know, Connecticut and that this term is different.

The STA he's doing now is very different than we did in his first term.

And it's going to turn off a lot of money in services and government interactions that people are used to.

You know, it's a lot more akin to what Elon Musk Twitter, which is like turn everything off and then selectively, you know, see what breaks in and start turning things back on.

That's going to be a very different experience for people that even Trump voters.

I what I want to want to see what I want to see the next few months is does that disruption show up in people's lives in a way that they don't like?

And there's that moderate comes behavior.

Does he start to change behavior?

It means that his voters changes in their lives.

They don't like.

We just got I believe this was a comment that came in from one of our listeners, Kyle from Woodbury.

> > Thank you so much.

Reaching out to us, Kyle I am a small farmer and I've signed.

I have assigned USDA contractor.

I don't know where to move or call forward.

That's happening, especially in farms.

You know that that there's so many > > a farmer aid programs that came out under the Inflation Reduction Act work.

Farmers were said, but hold okay, take Take this field and make it followed, change this thing.

So you're protecting a river bed better and the government will pay you for the changes you may think will pay you for the land.

You take out of production.

Those grants are also being cut off.

So the idea that it's just cities just blue states.

It's not a lot of farmers are very affected by this.

And they are also sort of left to lurch wondering, like, well, I'm I'm just not going to get the money that I was told to expect.

You know, I already did.

But my part of the deal now, the government doesn't want to live up to its part of the deal.

> > From Connecticut Public Radio, this is the wheelhouse.

I'm Frankie writes Down even listening to a fabulous conversation with David Ferrand told investigative reporter for The New York Times.

David, thank you for coming on the show today.

Thank you.

Folks should follow your reporting at The New York Times and obviously listen to the daily to Just incredible work that's being done to spotlight what's happening at the federal level, particularly with what you just talked about, the nonprofits and then federal workers who have just lost their jobs.

I really value what you all Thank you so much for doing it.

Thank you to Alex Parman reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

Wonderful having you on the show.

Keep doing what you're doing.

Alex, particularly at the state level and maybe you can address some of the concerns that Kyle and Nathan of had thankyou so much for your work.

> > Thanks for having me as always, for daycare.

> > After the break, we hear about Governor Lamont's plan for universal Pre-K. > > Join the conversation.

8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, ♪ ♪ > > This is the wheelhouse from Connecticut, public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

Joining me now, McKayla Savitz State government reporter for Connecticut Public.

thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

So happy to have you on folks who want to join the to date 720-9677, McKayla governor Ned Lamont recently announced a two-year spending recommendations to Connecticut lawmakers fun.

We're in budget season here in What can you tell about this?

What details about this new proposal that we are understanding now is for Pre-K. > > Yes, is being called the universal Preschool Endowment is 300 million dollars being proposed coming from last year's budget surplus.

with it further investment coming from anticipated future surpluses in the hope that it will to expand and sustain Connecticut's child care system.

In the long-term you a system that is very strained right now and has been for a long time.

and 10% of this balance can be used every year.

And so 30 million could be used in this first year.

If the proposal passes and they would immediately make more childcare spaces available through care for kids, which is a program that pays for child care costs for low to moderate income families.

So essentially building on programming.

The state already has.

And then it would also include community planning, ensuring that parents and other stakeholders.

You have a seat at the table and can talk with the administration.

Knew all across the state from new London to New Haven to New Canaan about what they want to see.

Ford child improving.

Don't care.

Do we know who this endowment will help directly?

> > Yeah, a little.

I would say it mainly strives to help 2 groups, parents and child care workers there are more households compared to the 1950's.

I think late in his latest numbers from the Department of Labor, like 70% of households, we're both parents are working and so child care is really a requirement for a lot of families across the nation.

This is not just in Connecticut and even before the pandemic, there was a child care crisis.

So, you know, who does this help?

It helps parents but you know, women, particularly women of color, are especially impacted by childcare crisis and so, you know, focusing on that parents part, the proposal includes that by 2028 preschool would be for free of charge for families that make up to $100,000 a year and then for families earning up to $150,000 it would be capped at $20 a day you know, I hear those numbers and I'm like, wow, like $100,000 leg.

> > not that much these days.

And no, I did ask Commissioner Beth Bye Office of the early Childhood Commissioner, Beth, by whether it would be.

> > This would universal truly, regardless of input, income and she said that will really depend on how the fund does over time.

But, you know, she has heard that concern.

> > Universal is a key word because for many people it note that like everybody's involved in this, universe, right?

And that everything free.

But as I understand, it doesn't mean free day care for every child in Connecticut.

I recently spoke to every move that Zimmerman, the coalition director for childcare see 2 years, which he had to say.

> > Here in the state of Connecticut, the current plan is looking at capping the cost of care at 75%.

But what the costs really is.

So that means that there is still some costs being incurred by the municipality, the center or the parent.

> > He's also eligibility requirements like age that municipalities can also use to determine who gets available.

Childcare slots that.

That woman and child care for kids say they applaud the work that the governor and office of Early Childhood Commissioner Beth Bye, who just McKayla just name dropped.

Shout out to Beth Bye, are doing to expand access to childcare year.

They're looking for more, though, like a long-term solution that would make Connecticut more self-sufficient in case federal subsidies go away.

> > Right now, parents are spending nearly 30% of their annual income to pay for childcare.

literally does everyday expenses.

There's even parents taking out personal loans in order to pay for child care, working families just can't afford it.

And that means that if they can afford it, they're out of the workforce.

They're not bear.

They're not taking promotions.

And it's impacting the whole economy.

> > So he spoke to Beth Bye and you're hearing from stakeholders.

But are you hearing from advocates as well?

> > Yeah, absolutely.

you know, for their reactions, were you overall?

Very excited.

I spoke to a shortly after the budget address.

number.

The number of them are very excited to see this big investment in the childcare industry in Connecticut the investment in childcare workers is really crucial here because that is the root of the issue right?

It's workers are not being paid enough.

So there are not enough people in the workforce to safely meet demand.

In these child care facilities in classrooms and so getting people into the industry and staying there is really important.

And that's why the state's plan is a long-term one.

So no, they withdraw from the endowment increase provider, paid to be on par with kindergarten teachers instead of the rate that worker see now, which is about 75% of what kindergarten teachers make that shift would also come in 2028.

So you know.

There's some there's long-term planning to do right like they want to hear from the community.

They need.

They don't want spend the money to fast like some other states have so, you know, cost of living is high.

Workers are saying they need relief.

Now.

There's there's bills in legislature that are also addressing the childcare specifically the pay parity issue.

So we'll have to see wait and see on that And then there were also some other mixed reactions in terms of what age groups weren't included.

In this proposal.

> > I want to I want to go about it this way.

The IED that seems like there's a lot of focus on Pre K is is there the sense that but you also talked about the investment component of it.

Is there a sense that this really gets to the heart of the issue this bill, if it if past obviously, too, or at least if it's incorporated to the in the budget.

> > Well, you know, I think the Lamont Administration has emphasized that this is starting point.

And you know that Beth Bye told me that, you know, this is.

They started with universal Pre-K because that structure was already there.

But also acknowledges, you know, the concerns are really valid from advocates who said who are like.

But what about birth to 3 like and also that's a that's a really those that's typically a more expensive part of the childcare industry.

So, you know, again, advocates really happy to see the dip proposed down payment.

But, you know, after the proposal came out you know, they're they're saying, you know, are there ways to look add it?

Expand on it, help families with children under 3 and, you know, commissioner, by told me this week that its it's not out of you know, it's not out of the picture, but it's down the road once the trust fund is in place there, drawing on that, paying at pain at the market rate for preschool that would free up millions of dollars in the care for kids funds because the trust fund is put filling in for the preschool.

Rates and then those funds would become available for infant.

How their certificates, after-school certificates or whatever the families need.

So again, an emphasis on the long-term plan here.

Thank you so much for outlining this.

You got any kind of final thoughts or anything else.

We should be paying attention to.

> > Obviously, this has to be legislated.

> > Anything.

I mean, and we were also the long sessions.

Those there's number of months ahead > > yeah, it's what day is today.

Today's February 19th.

So that means that in a week or the next couple of weeks, your job kind of becomes some public hearings may be something like that.

So, yeah, I'm just saying this is long because then you have June.

So we're still 3 or 4 months away to win.

This all could be decided.

> > Yeah, in like I said, there's a number of bills addressing the childhood sector in the legislature right now and in addressing you know, the economy families.

So, you know, it's not legislators that are really pushing to try and help Connecticut families you know, and in 2025 or system has evolved, then this problem has did on child care workers that you know, that governments hasn't supported.

This.

This workforce and building it out.

So it's a long-term thing.

And think we'll have to watch the process and see how it unfolds.

Something people should watch is reporting that is available at CT Public Dot Org.

5 McKayla sav it on the Web.

There.

> > You'll find some stories about climate resiliency.

You'll also find efforts.

I think you just spoke to join grill.

Kate Gill crest about lawmakers trying to find some money to support people going through endometriosis.

And obviously this reporting you've done here on the childcare sector.

Thank you so much.

Mckayla.

Thank you.

Thank So great to have you today.

Show was a great one.

It was produced by Chloe win edited by Robin.

Doing Aiken.

Our technical producer is dealing race.

Download that will house anytime on your favorite podcast app.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This is the wheelhouse.

Thank you for listening end.

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