The Idaho Legislature passed a bill to deregulate child care centers in hopes of addressing Idaho’s child care shortage crisis. (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent)
The Idaho House on Wednesday widely passed a bill on a party-line vote to deregulate child care centers in hopes of addressing Idaho’s child care shortage crisis.
Cosponsored by Idaho Republican House lawmakers Reps. Barbara Ehardt, from Idaho Falls, and Rod Furniss, from Rigby, House Bill 243a heads to Idaho Gov. Brad Little for final consideration.
The House already widely passed an earlier version of the bill, despite concerns from child care advocates about the bill repealing state-set minimum child-to-staff ratio standards and instead allowing child care centers to set their own ratios.
But last week, the Idaho Senate amended the bill to reinsert the state’s minimum child-to-staff ratios standards, but loosen them. Then the Senate passed the amended bill on a 25-10 vote.
“We sent over a pretty gosh darn good bill to the Senate. And they sent us over, well, kind of a good bill,” Ehardt told House lawmakers on Wednesday.
The Idaho House on Wednesday passed the bill on a 55-7 vote, with opposition from all seven House Democratic lawmakers present; the other two House Democrats were absent, along with six Republican lawmakers.
The bill would still preempt local governments from having more stringent child care regulations than issued by the state, by repealing a provision in Idaho law that allowed stricter regulations in city or county ordinance.
Idaho House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said she appreciated the bill would no longer remove state-set child-to-staff ratio standards. But she called the bill “a full-frontal attack on local control.”
“The only training requirements right now here are provided at the city level. There are trainings that somebody in the facility has to be CPR certified, that they have to … undergo certain certification and certain training,” Rubel said on the House floor. “All of that is eviscerated still under this bill.”
Even after the amendments, many child care advocates still oppose the bill — worrying that loosening regulations will risk harm to kids.
“Idaho already is among the weakest states for child care licensing standards in the country, and any rollback of regulations or increase of child to staff ratios is a potential risk to children in child care settings,” Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children’s external relations director Sheralynn Bauder told the Sun in a written statement before the House vote. “We oppose any policy that weakens protections for children and undermines quality early learning providers who utilize best practices.”
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Idaho already has loose child-to-staff ratio standards
Idaho’s existing child-to-staff ratios are the 41st loosest in the nation, compared to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, a report by Idaho Voices for Children found. In other words, Idaho’s existing state-set child care standards let individual staffers care for more children at a given time than most states.
If the new bill passes, Idaho would have the 45th least stringent child-to-staff ratios in the nation, Idaho Voices for Children Executive Director Christine Tiddens told the Sun in an email.
“Before rushing to dismantle a complex industry and economic driver, elected officials should take a year to study the impact of child care deregulation,” she wrote in an email.
That’s what she said she’s encouraging the governor to do: Veto the bill and, instead, assemble “a committee of parents, providers, and child safety experts to develop recommendations to address Idaho’s child care shortage.”
When the bill is transmitted to the governor’s desk, he has five days — excluding Sundays — to decide how to act on it. He has three options: He can sign the bill into law, allow it to become law without his signature, or veto it.
The bill would take effect July 1.
How the bill would change Idaho’s child-to-staff child care ratio standards
If passed into law, the bill would retain the state’s points-based ratio that only allows up to 12-points, determined by kids’ ages, per each staff member. But the underlying points for kids would almost all be reduced.
Here’s how the bill would change Idaho’s child-to-staff ratio standards:
- Each child under 24 months old would remain at two points.
- Each child at least 24 months old but younger than 36 months would be 1.33 points. That is a decrease from the current 1.5 points in Idaho law.
- Each child at least 36 months old but younger than 5 years old would be 0.923 points. That is a decrease from 1 point in Idaho law.
- Each child at least 5 years old but younger than 13 years old would be 0.48 points. That is a decrease from 0.5 points in Idaho law.
Kearis Ochs, who owns Whole Child Early Education in Rexburg, told the Sun in an email she was relieved the bill wouldn’t repeal child-to-staff ratios, but she said the new system the bill would bring seems “extremely impractical.”
“Sitting all of the kids down and getting out our calculators is just not going to happen,” she told the Sun.
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