
"I think if somebody were to be listening to your question, they might draw conclusion that we don't support childcare. I believe the statement is inaccurate. This administration has put more money into childcare than every other administration in the history of New Jersey combined both using State money and Federal money. So that's the statement that I believe is accurate and we're proud of that. We completely get it. It's not just for the precious kids. It's for the parents so they can work particularly working moms. This is a huge economic imperative in addition to taking care of the precious kids who need the blessed attention that they get. The issue of the $30 million is every budget particularly if you're trying to regain fiscal stability after it was frittered away on both sides of the aisle over decades you can't fund everything to your maximum. Hope you wanna do more but you can't always do everything that you dream of doing. This would be on the list if we have if we find some loose change under the sofa pillows between now and the time we leave. Trying to figure out a way to shrink that $30 million gap would be high on the list of priorities without making any promises because we're not gonna do is walk out the door by spending a lot of money at the end as I said a minute ago, leaving our successor, regardless of who it is in an impaired fiscal state. I completely agree with everything you said but I wanna make sure folks out there heard what I said as well, which is no administration has ever done what we've done in childcare and we're proud of that."
~ Governor Phil Murphy during a live radio broadcast on October 15th, 2025 responding to a listener's question about a $30 million budget cut to the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP).
Read our response here.