House committee kills day-care bill

BOISE – A House committee killed bipartisan legislation Tuesday that would have required basic safety standards in day cares, after Republican lawmakers said the change wasn’t needed and would force rural providers to close down.

“In small towns where there is one provider, that person will be out of business because they can’t afford the increased fees,” said Rep. Paul Shepherd, R-Riggins. “I can see how it would work in Boise, but not in rural Idaho.”

The measure would have required criminal background checks, basic fire safety standards and a limit on how many children one caregiver could oversee at once. Licensing fee increases would be minimal compared with how much providers make per month, according to Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene, the cosponsor of the bill.

But after 90 minutes of testimony and debate in the House Health and Welfare Committee, the measure, which was also endorsed by Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, died on a 6-6 vote.

Sayler and a handful of day-care providers made impassioned pleas, arguing almost every business is regulated by the state except the child-care industry.

“Parents expect and deserve the assurance…that they’ve chosen a place where their kids are going to be safe,” said Cathy Kowalski, owner of the Loving Care Children’s Center in Coeur d’Alene and a member of the Childcare Summit group, which has been working on the legislation for a year and a half.

Idaho’s current day-care regulations apply only to centers with 13 children or more. Sayler’s legislation would have applied those standards to all centers caring for two or more children unrelated to the caregivers.

The Panhandle effort started, Sayler told the committee, after a Coeur d’Alene police officer who was looking for a day-care provider for his children, walked into a center in 2003 and suspected there was drug use taking place. Since then, the Childcare Summit and a coalition in North Idaho have been discussing how to make the centers safer, leading to Sayler’s bill.

“There is a need for minimum requirements,” said Sayler, adding that almost 60 percent of working women in Idaho put their children in a day-care facility. That adds up to 65,000 children being cared for by someone other than their parent, he added.

But Shepherd and five other legislators said the bill would create more problems than it solves. “There are a lot of places where … a lady next door is watching the kids who’s known them all their life,” said Rep. Pete Nielsen, R-Mountain Home. “I question if we should regulate that activity.”

Rep. Bill Sali, R-Kuna, said he didn’t see a need to change the regulations.

“If we pass this bill, we will kill day-care centers in rural Idaho,” Sali said. The system “has been working, and will continue to work.”

However, Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise, said she was amazed there could be opposition for a bill that has no impact to taxpayers and has widespread support from caregivers.

“I’m not so sure if raising fees by pennies a day would throw businesses out the door,” she said. “The day-care providers, the ones that deal with this on a daily basis, consider the current requirements inadequate.”

After the vote, Kowalski said the legislators could expect to see her next year with a similar bill. “This issue won’t go away,” said Rep. Bob Ring, R-Caldwell, who voted in favor of it.