Child-care providers may face new rules

Proof of U.S. citizenship or legal residence would become a requirement for certifying certain child-care providers under a new bill headed to Utah's Legislature.

Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, said he's not targeting illegal immigration, but is sponsoring HB230 as a "security measure" for residential child-care providers, who may care for up to eight children at a time in their homes.

"If they don't check people out, they could have felons there; kids could be kidnapped," Donnelson said.

The 994 residential child-care certificates in Utah represent about 42 percent of the state's 2,350 child-care providers regulated by the

Utah Department of Health.

Criminal background checks are already a requirement for the child-care providers, but Donnelson doesn't believe that all providers are undergoing them.

"If they are going to do the proof of citizenship, they are going to do the criminal background check; it just falls hand-in-hand," Donnelson said. "Right now they are doing nothing."

The background checks are being conducted, as required by state law for any provider who cares for more than four unrelated children for longer than four hours day, said Marc Babitz, director of the Utah Department of Health's Division of Health Systems Improvement. For in-home providers, all residents of the home must also undergo a background check.

"I see our charge in child care as safety and health inspections of all these providers," Babitz said. "I don't see how this issue affects health and safety."

Babitz said that while a 2005 state audit found that some child-care providers had been granted licenses after failing background checks, he's changed the policy. Now, the only way a provider with a criminal record can obtain a license is to have the record expunged, he said.

"We have done intensive screenings over the past year and a half," Babitz said. "We have been continuing to do careful background checks."

Babitz said he doesn't know the immigration status of certified child-care providers, but he believes it is important to have ethnically and culturally diverse providers available.

Forcing those providers out of business or under- ground could have an ad- verse impact on all children, he said.

"One of the biggest infectors of influenza are children," he said. "These are children who go to school.... To deny access to sources of child care that is inspected and regulated for health and safety is not good public policy."

The bill doesn't specify what would constitute proof of citizenship. Donnelson said it would likely be a birth certificate.

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