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April 3, 2009 in Idaho
House committee advances day care bill
Measure licenses centers with seven or more kids
BOISE – Day care licensing legislation cleared the House Health and Welfare Committee on Thursday on a unanimous vote, but only with extensive changes, including required licensing only for day cares with seven or more unrelated children, while still requiring criminal background checks for those with four or more.
Idaho currently licenses only day cares with 13 or more unrelated children. State Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene, has brought legislation unsuccessfully every year for the past five years to expand that. This is the first year the bill has made it out of committee in either house; it passed the Senate 30-5 last month.
“This is an improved version,” said state Rep. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett.
State Rep. Jim Marriott, R-Blackfoot, said, “The no licensing of the six and lower – I think that was a big thing that I was hung up on before, because I live in a rural area, and everybody knows everybody. … I just didn’t think we should ask them to go through that.”
The amendments to Senate Bill 1112a also remove all requirements for continuing education for day care workers in day cares with fewer than 13 children; make some adjustments to fees, with the result that the bill may carry a cost to the state of some $30,000 a year rather than being self-funding; and make various other changes. Basic health and safety requirements, including requiring a working phone, smoke detectors, and fencing around water, remain in the bill for those day cares that would be licensed, but not for the smaller ones with fewer than seven children.
Committee Chairwoman Sharon Block, R-Twin Falls, said, “I think this was a good compromise bill and I think it was a bill the committee could support – we had a unanimous vote. I think it will provide protection for Idaho’s children, and it also will allow the child care providers in the rural areas to stay in business and to have safety measures in place for the children, so I’m very pleased.”
Sen. Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home, said some of the amendments may cause difficulty in the Senate, particularly the fiscal impact; the bill may have to go to a conference committee, he said. If it passes, he said, “I’ll be pleased that we have done something it has taken 20 years to do. I just would’ve been more proud if we were protecting all the children.”
Betsy Z. Russell can be reached toll-free at (866) 336-2854 or bzrussell@gmail.com. For more news from Boise go to www.spokesman.com/boise.
Popular beaches to become cleaner 
jasonut29 on April 03 at 8:33 a.m.
Comments like Marriott’s show just how out of touch these people are with the real world. Does he actually believe that there are people in his “rural area” that don’t abuse children and also are trusted members of the community? If he does he is foolish. Because people go to church and have a front of being “wonderful” doesn’t mean they don’t hurt children. The background checks may not bring anything up but they also don’t break the bank of a person who is being paid for child care!! I would compare this statement to Loertcher’s statement that we don’t need child care licensing because women belong at home with their children…only it seems in SE Idaho!!!!
And the bill carries requirements for continuing ed if you take care of 13 or more….wow that must mean if you only have 12 children you don’t need to know what’s available for children to learn in your care or how to recognize abuse (oh yes that doesn’t happen in Idaho, I forgot), or even how to save a child…this is not a compromise bill it is a bill showing just how ignorant and out of touch the Idaho legislature is with what is going on in the real world….it doesn’t just happen in other states!!!!
Maybe they would be willing to put their children at risk but if having background checks saved one child because we did 100 backgound checks I would think it was worth it….100 background checks currently costs about $3500.00 no to much for a childs future I would think!!
We continue even if this bill passes to lag behind reality in this State and have become the blunt of jokes in the real world where statistics show how much abuse there is…even in Idaho!!