Day-care legislation gets its day in Boise

BOISE – Backers of day-care licensing legislation that’s up for a hearing in a House committee today say they’ve brought together providers, legislators from both parties, parents and others to develop a common-sense bill that will assure parents their kids are safe when they take them to day care.

But the bill’s main sponsor, Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene, says there’s only a 50 percent chance the bill will clear the House Health and Welfare Committee today, as a number of the panel’s members remain staunchly opposed to any regulation.

“It’s a good piece of legislation,” Sayler said. “It’s just frustrating that we’ve run into this philosophical objection.”

Cathy Kowalski, a Coeur d’Alene early-childhood consultant and public policy chairwoman for the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children, said she’s optimistic that after years of resisting legislation, lawmakers will act this year.

“Even though we haven’t passed anything over the last few years, what has happened is legislators are starting to see the importance of child care to working families,” she said.

She added, “When four out of five children under the age of 5 are in child care in the state of Idaho, it’s a huge, huge issue. More and more, both parents are working.”

The legislation, HB 163, sets minimum health and safety standards for all child care centers and requires criminal history checks, infant CPR and first-aid training, and minimum staffing levels that vary based on the children’s ages.

“It had so much input from providers,” Kowalski said. “These providers got together and said, ‘We need to do something because the current ratios are not very safe.’ And they came up with a ratio that would increase the safety but still enable them to stay in business and provide quality care.”

The bill has 10 co-sponsors from the House and Senate in addition to Sayler, five of them Democrats and five Republicans.

Idaho currently has no regulations on those who care for six or fewer children, and very minimal rules for day cares for seven to 12 children. Some cities apply stricter regulations with ordinances. The bill would extend the regulations to all those who care for two or more unrelated children for pay.

“What we’re dealing with here is basic health and safety,” Sayler said. “That’s really the first step in quality child care … just to make the facilities safe.”

In Coeur d’Alene, one day-care operator’s husband was a registered sex offender and was on the premises. “They shut her down, and she moved out of the city and opened another one,” Sayler said. “There’s no consistency.”

Kowalski said Idaho’s day-care regulations lag far behind most states. For centers with six or fewer children, she said, “We have no regulations, no criminal history check, no health regulations, no fire regulations, absolutely no oversight. … There’s no requirement for them to even have a phone on the premises or anything like that.”

Said Sayler, “We want to provide a safe, healthy place for kids where parents can take their children and know that they’ll be in a good environment.”