Measure targets child-care providers

A bill designed to protect children getting care from family members, friends and neighbors has advanced out of a legislative committee.

The House Workforce Services and Community and Economic Development Committee this week passed out HB73, which calls for criminal background checks for those providers, if they receive a state subsidy for their child-care work.

The Department of Workforce Services subsidizes the care of about 15,000 Utah children. About 8,000 are in regulated facilities. About 6,000 are in unregulated settings, including an estimated 3,000 getting care from family, friends or neighbors.

The background checks would be required for providers and anyone age 12 or older in the household where the care is being provided. If the providers have lived in Utah at least five years, the check would be a free computerized check. If they have lived in Utah less than five years, they would have to submit to an FBI criminal background check, costing $31.

"The Department of Workforce Services learned that some individuals who receive a subsidy for providing child care for families on public assistance have a criminal background which has not been disclosed," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights. "Currently, the department has no authority to conduct background checks on these individuals, and so this legislation would provide for these background checks."

At an interim committee meeting last fall, Lynette Rasmussen, director of the department's Office of Work and Family Life, which includes the Office of Child Care, said the department pulled a sample of 40 cases and matched them against a district court database. Eleven providers had criminal backgrounds, including many with multiple charges and one felony. Some were on parole, while one had a pending warrant for her arrest.

The convictions against the 11 — all were grandparents except for one uncle — included child neglect, aggravated assault with a knife, driving under the influence, possession of narcotics equipment, operation of a meth lab, armed robbery, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, weapons charges and simple assault, Rasmussen said.

In each case, the providers had falsified their registration form with the department by checking a box indicating they had no one in their household convicted of a felony, a misdemeanor against a person or a supported finding of child abuse or neglect, she said.

HB73 also prohibits a child-care provider from letting a person convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors provide subsidized child care or live where the child care is provided. A person who has committed "severe" child abuse or neglect also is barred from getting subsidies.

"I'm happy to see this bill come forward," said the committee's co-chairman, Rep. Steve Mascaro, R-West Jordan. "It was covered in our interim but was really an anomaly in our law that needed to be corrected."

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com

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