PROVIDENCE — It was not an average field trip for the 4-year-olds of the West End Community Center.

“Our community! Our schools! Our programs!” chanted the seven little boys and girls standing before the House Finance Committee yesterday afternoon with oversized West End Day Care T-shirts down to their knees and buttons pinned to their chests that read “Have a Heart.”

The little lobbyists sang a song encouraging lawmakers to “Never settle for the path of least resistance,” before filing single file out of the State House committee room.

Governor Carcieri has proposed cutting all state money for the federal Head Start program and eliminating another preschool program, known as Comprehensive Services. At least 655 poor children, ages 3, 4 and 5, would be knocked out of the early childhood development centers if the General Assembly follows the governor’s recommendations.

“They need to stop looking at paper and start looking at some of these kids,” said West End Day Care teacher Ton’ya Butler of the lawmakers’ struggle to balance a state budget deficit of at least $384 million predicted for the fiscal year that begins in July.

The Head Start cut — which eliminates 400 of 2,800 preschool slots statewide — would save state taxpayers $3.3 million; the Comprehensive Services cut has no direct savings for the state, as the program depends on $1.5 million from the federal government funneled through the state Department of Human Services.

The governor’s staff plans to shift the federal dollars to pay for possible enrollment increases in the state’s subsidized child-care program.

“These are heart wrenching decisions,” said Department of Human Services Director Gary Alexander, sitting in the front row of the committee room just before the children started to sing. “I think it always gets harder when you see anybody affected. … In better times, these are programs we wouldn’t be looking to eliminate.”

Head Start offers preschool classes to ensure that poor children begin school “on an equal footing with their more economically-advantaged peers,” according to a policy brief produced by Rhode Island Kids Count, a child advocacy group. The analysis notes that children from families at or below the poverty level are typically 18 months behind their peers in learning and social skills at age 4.

Head Start is a federal early-childhood program primarily open to 3- and 4-year-olds in families at or below the federal poverty level, which is $17,600 for a family of three.

Comprehensive Services was developed eight years ago in part to help serve young children that end up on the Head Start waiting list. Currently, fewer than half of those qualified for Head Start are served.

Comprehensive Services offers health and education benefits to children living at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level, $22,000 for a family of three. The children receive vision, hearing, dental, developmental and nutrition screenings and parents receive training and social services. The program also pays for teacher training.

The governor’s cuts would “be helping a new generation of children enter the hopeless spiral of the poverty cycle,” said James D. Berson, the chief operating officer of Meeting Street, a Comprehensive Services provider. “We will prepare kids to enter kindergarten ready to fail ... and we will all pay — our school systems, our communities, our society, our state. We will all pay.”

More than a dozen advocates testified yesterday about the health, educational and economic benefits associated with preschool. It was an argument that Finance Committee member Rep. Eileen S. Naughton, D-Warwick, agreed with.

“I think it’s foolish,” she said of the governor’s plan. “There’s a tremendous body of science and studies on early-childhood development. And from birth to age 6 is one of the most rapid periods of time for children to develop. This program helps take advantage of that early period to reap significant benefits both socially and health wise.”

Carcieri’s spokesman Jeff Neal said there are no easy fixes this year. Restoring money for preschool would require a cut somewhere else.

“There is no doubt that the state budget crisis requires very difficult decisions,” he said. “But no matter what state spending is reduced, the results will be difficult for the beneficiaries.”

speoples@projo.com