Despite increasing demand, state legislators dealing with a projected $9 billion budget shortfall are poised to cut back on a critical program for early childhood education.

With draft plans for the legislature’s budget due this week, a number of state-funded programs are on the chopping block, including the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program.

State Executive Director Joel Ryan said he didn’t know how deep the cuts would be, but that it was exactly the wrong time to cut a program that affects the state’s most vulnerable residents.

“Those cuts will hurt kids,” he said. “There are probably people in the Kirkland community that, one year ago, never thought they’d need to rely on this program. But things certainly have changed.”

Due in part to the recession, demand for state-supported spots in school is at a record high. In January, 2,610 kids across the state were waiting to enter a preschool participating in ECEAP. A year earlier, 1,346 children were on the program waiting list, according to state statistics.

ECEAP is a comprehensive program for low-income families, though it accepts some higher-income children with special needs or circumstances. Families qualify for the ECEAP based on income at or below 130 percent poverty level. The poverty level is calculated at $22,050 per year for a family of four. The program is modeled after the federal Head Start preschool program. About 12,000 children are in Head Start programs around the state and another 8,200 are supported through ECEAP.

One of those families, Lucy Kee and her 4-year-old son Colton, are successfully using the program to overcome developmental delays which necessitate a feeding tube. The program secured a spot for the Seattle family at the University of Washington’s Experimental Education Unit, where Colton could get the attention he needed for dealing with food anxieties while Kee was able to expand her own opportunities in career building.

“It’s not just glorified day care,” she said. “They’re trying to get families out of the system. They’re helping us better our lives.”

Thanks to the help they received so far, Colton is on track to enroll in Kindergarten without a feeding tube and the family was able to hold their first Thanksgiving dinner in their home last year.

In Olympia, Ways and Means Committee vice-chair Senator Rodney Tom (D-Medina) has been busy crafting the state senate’s budget proposal released Monday and said there’s virtually no way around $3.6 billion in program cuts.

“We’re making some tough calls but trying to make only as deep a cut as we have to,” he said. “We’re not trying to scare anyone.”

The state legislature has been focused first on balancing the budget with the money they have, Tom said. Increasing revenues through a voted tax increase has not been a major focus yet, but he hinted a shift in the discussion may come in the coming months.

In the meantime, Tom pointed to increased Head Start funding from the federal stimulus package that will take the place of much of the state funding cuts.

But he plegded cuts wouldn’t be made where ECEAP is the only service available for early-childhood education, since Head Start is not available in all the state’s school districts.

“We’ve had an emphasis on early-childhood education and recognize that those programs are one of our most productive uses of spending dollars,” he said.