For the past six-and-a-half years, Gov. Ned Lamont has reported surplus after surplus, building a track record of tax cuts and budget stability he hopes will win him a third term this November.

But if new projections from the state Comptroller Sean Scanlon and nonpartisan fiscal analysts are correct, Lamont’s unblemished record is at risk — albeit modestly.

“It’s my job to tell people what the numbers are, and I’m doing my job,” Scanlon told the Connecticut Mirror on Tuesday, though he added that the latest issues plaguing state finances “are not easy problems to address.”

These new fiscal problems are increasingly jeopardizing funding for Lamont’s plan to dramatically expand affordable child care.

Surpluses are the chief funding source for the Early Childhood Education Endowment that Lamont and the General Assembly launched last spring, so advocates for child care expressed frustration this week after the administration projected only $33 million, less than 1% of Connecticut’s $27.2 billion budget, would be left when the fiscal year wraps June 30.

Lawmakers built a $309 million cushion into that spending plan, but eroding corporation tax revenues, rising Medicaid expenses and other issues wiped out most of that.

Lamont’s $33 million surplus estimate also doesn’t reflect a $39.3 million shortfall Scanlon identified in the retiree health care program. If that’s correct, a $33 million surplus forecast becomes a $6.3 million deficit.

The legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis reached a similar conclusion Wednesday, projecting a nearly $30 million deficit in the General Fund. Besides recognizing problems with the retiree health care account, nonpartisan analysts also concluded legal claims the state must pay this fiscal year will be greater than the Lamont administration assumes.

Connecticut hasn’t faced an operating deficit since 2018, when then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy closed the fiscal year with a $483 million shortfall.

Further complicating matters, the $28.7 billion budget Lamont proposed in February for the fiscal year that begins July 1 underfunds retiree health care by almost $92 million, according to Scanlon. That plan, on paper, is built to run $326 million in the black, but the projected cushion slips to $234 million based on the comptroller’s estimates.

“We see those projections [and] recognize that is a challenge we are going to work with,” Lamont’s budget director, Josh Wojcik, said Wednesday. “This has a lot to do with timing and other issues.”

Connecticut, which contractually guarantees qualifying employees health care upon retirement, must pay the benefits. And Scanlon’s office first released its retiree health care cost projections to the administration in August.

Things changed dramatically in late January when President Trump’s administration boosted rates for an alternative Medicare plan that Connecticut and many other states rely upon to supplement their coverage for retired workers by less than 0.1%. Some industry analysts had expected an increase as high as 6%.

Costs also can fluctuate significantly year to year depending on how sick retirees become, and Wojcik said “the utilization numbers were not running well.”

Minority Republicans in the state Senate objected last spring to creating an endowment outside of the formal budget and to using surpluses to expand affordable child care, arguing it would lead to fiscal gimmicks, like failing to disclose a clear budget deficit.

But had Lamont and his fellow Democrats in the legislature’s majority paid for the program in traditional fashion, the overall budget would have exceeded another cap that keeps overall spending in line with household income and inflation.

Nonetheless, the result is dishonest budgeting, said Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield.

“It runs contrary to what the [fiscal] guardrails were there for,” he said. “This Democratic Party, it’s starting to reap what it’s sown.”

At first glance, the state has the resources to fix both the retirement benefit shortfall and the pledged transfers to the child care endowment, easily.

Since 2017, the state has employed a special budget cap that bars legislators from easily spending a portion of income and business tax receipts, and the program is expected to capture $1.8 billion this fiscal year.

That’s enough to wipe out a potential $6.3 million deficit hundreds of times over.

But this savings is supposed to be used to reduce the state’s hefty pension debt, which exceeds $33.5 billion.

Still, the governor asked lawmakers in February to make an exception so he could use $500 million from this $1.8 billion to finance one-time tax rebates to 2.2 million Connecticut residents this October. His plan would send $200 to individuals who earn less than $200,000 per year and $400 to couples making less than $400,000.

And while the administration hasn’t said whether it would raid the savings program to protect transfers to the child care endowment as well, Chris Collibee, Lamont’s budget spokesman, said this week that the governor is “fully dedicated to making sure that we deliver on that vision and promise.”

Connecticut also has more than $3.1 billion it holds in trust for its retiree health care program, and Wojcik noted that could easily cover the $39.3 million shortfall in that benefiti program.

But Connecticut is supposed to build that trust, not reduce it, to ensure future generations of taxpayers don’t get overwhelmed by the cost of providing health care to retired state workers. The state already has more than $16 billion in unfunded, long-term obligations tied to retiree health care, more than five times what it holds in trust.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, co-chairwoman of the Children’s Committee, said Tuesday that the child care endowment badly needs the pledged surplus deposits and the state also must spend more in its budget on early education.

Maher and others are supporting a bill that would add $70 million to next fiscal year’s budget to bolster Care 4 Kids, a state program that helps low- to moderate-income families cover child care expenses.

Connecticut’s child care industry, which is still recovering from financial wounds inflicted during the COVID pandemic, remains fragile, many lawmakers say.

And Maher said unless the state finds ways to pump big dollars into the care programs soon, many will be out of business within a few years.

Some child care providers “are using their credit cards to fund the salaries of their child care workers,” she added. “They’re going broke trying to retain and maintain a system that we, as a state, are not stepping up for.”