State lawmakers should not wait for a constitutional amendment in 2014 that would allow public money to be spent on private preschool before launching a school readiness program, Gov. Neil Abercrombie said Wednesday.

The Abercrombie administration and many education, labor and business leaders want lawmakers to approve about $30 million to cover 3,500 4-year-olds in a school readiness program in the 2014-2015 school year. The children would have been eligible for junior kindergarten at public schools, but junior kindergarten is being eliminated.

The administration contends a constitutional amendment is necessary if the school readiness program were to expand over a decade to include all of the state’s estimated 18,000 4-year-olds in state-funded preschool. But the governor’s advisers think the initial 3,500 children could be enrolled without an amendment.

Article X of the state Constitution prohibits public money from being spent on private educational institutions. The administration envisions that both public and private preschools would enroll children.

Several lawmakers have cited the constitutional amendment, which would go before voters in November 2014, after the school year has started, as an issue in launching a school readiness program. But others have cited cost, curriculum and accountability issues with a program that could eventually cost the state $150 million a year when fully implemented.

"We need to get started now. This gives us the opportunity to get started now. It gives us the opportunity to make a case, if it needs to be made, to the public at large with regard to any legal additions we may need to bring it to full fruition," Abercrombie told the Senate Education Committee and the Senate Human Services Committee in his first public testimony of the session.

"But if we don’t move now, then we’re going to lose that opportunity."

Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom (R, Diamond Head-Kahala-Hawaii Kai) told the governor that the state should improve poorly performing public schools before starting state-funded preschool.

"The point is when you say that nobody can debate the issue of early learning and the importance, I think you’re right about that," he said. "But what they can debate — and what I intend to debate — is the manner in which it’s done, and the financing, and who pays for it."

The Senate committees on Wednesday advanced bills that would establish a school readiness program — Senate Bill 1093 — and an early childhood education program — Senate Bill 1095 — if a constitutional amendment were approved by voters in 2014. The constitutional amendment will be heard in the Senate later this week.

"This is not about baby-sitting and about day care centers," Sen. Jill Tokuda (D, Kailua-Kaneohe), the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said after the hearing. "This is about a high-quality publicly funded early learning system."