Legislative report

Hello again,

Senate Bill 1112, concerning child care licensure and sponsored by Senator Corder, was introduced into the Senate on the 16th of February. Almost a full month later it passed the full Senate with amendments and was assigned to the House on March 13th.

The House H&W Committee Chairman and myself as vice chair, urged the hearing of the bill and were finally given permission to hear it on the 26th of March.

Senator Corder presented the bill well and testimony was heard from the public. Testimony was both for and against the bill.

After some debate, it became quite apparent that the bill would not pass as it was. The H&W committee was in full favor of background checks as the bill contained. (This was basically the same wording as the "Idaho Child Care Program" which I helped get done a year ago.)

The first motion made, after hearing the testimony, came from Rep. Luker (R) to let the chair decide when the bill would be brought out for a vote. Then Rep. Rusche (D), a physician and supporter of the original bill, made a motion to change the licensing requirement from daycares for 4 up to daycares of 7 or more.

A third motion was made by Rep Durst (D) to send the bill as it was on to the full House with a "do pass" recommendation.

After debate, voting on the various motions started and according to House rules, the last motion made being voted on first. The motion to send to the floor as it was failed on a vote of 4 to 12.

Then the vote to change the size of daycares affected failed on a vote of 7 to 9.

The last vote to hold the bill in committee according to the discretion of the chairman passed.

Several of the committee members, including myself, got to work immediately to make the bill more agreeable to the full committee and in accordance with testimony we had heard from the public.

Our next committee meeting day was already fully scheduled. The soonest we could look at the bill again was April 2nd. On that day, we heard the bill and within 20 minutes unanimously agreed upon amendments.

These are: to increase the licensure requirements of a group size of 4 to 7 and keep background checks to group sizes of 4 or more; to continue allowing voluntary licensure down to groups of 4 or more so those that want state help with food assistance can qualify; to keep staffing requirements the same as the bill contained except employees 16 and 17 years of age may be counted in the child-staff ratio if supervised by an adult employee.

We heard quite a bit of testimony against the international fire code. We therefore eliminated those references but kept health and safety standards. We included a new section called ACCESS TO INFORMATION requiring the H&W Department to make available to daycare consumers an informational pamphlet to educate them and give them tools useful and critical in identifying quality daycare.

We also made a change that families within the second degree of relationship (this includes grandparents, children and cousins) can get together and provide care for each other without licensure. Before, this was limited to only two families that were related.

Fees were adjusted some.

I feel this is a really good bill and I expect it to pass the full house.

Hopefully, we will get the session done this week but that will depend on the House, Senate, and the governor reaching agreements on wages of state employees and setting the budget accordingly without tax increases.

Transportation costs also must be agreed upon and, of course, the issue there is also tax increases.

Please contact me with your concerns and ideas. I can be reached by e-mail at pnielsen@house.idaho.gov.