BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1991|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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CONSENT
Bill No: AB 1991
Author: Smyth (R), et al.
Amended: As introduced
Vote: 21
SENATE HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE : 7-0, 6/12/12
AYES: Liu, Emmerson, Berryhill, Hancock, Strickland,
Wright, Yee
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 72-0, 5/3/12 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT : Child care licensing exemptions: public
recreation programs
SOURCE : California Park and Recreation Society
DIGEST : This bill increases the number of weeks and
hours that public recreation programs may operate from 12
weeks and 16 hours per week to 14 weeks and 20 hours per
week.
ANALYSIS :
Existing law:
1. Provides for the licensing and regulation of child day
care facilities under the Department of Social Services
CONTINUED
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division of Community Care Licensing.
2. Establishes 14 exemptions from child day care licensing
requirements, including public recreation programs.
Exempted regulations include health and safety
standards, nutritional standards, staff training
requirements, earthquake preparedness requirements, and
criminal conviction standards, among others.
3. Defines "child day care facility" as a facility that
provides nonmedical care to children under 18 years of
age in need of personal services, supervision, or
assistance essential for sustaining the activities of
daily living or for the protection of the individual on
less than a 24-hour basis. A child day care facility
includes day care centers, employer-sponsored child care
centers, and family day care homes.
4. Defines "child day care center" as a child day care
facility other than a family day care home, and includes
infant centers, preschools, extended day care
facilities, and school-age child care centers.
5. Defines "public recreation program" as a program
operated by the state, city, county, special district,
school district, community college district, chartered
city, or chartered city and county that meets any of the
following three criteria:
A. The program is operated in the public school
district where the program is located, only during
non-school hours for grades K-12, and is operated no
more than 16 hours per week and no more than 12 weeks
or less during a 12 month period.
B. The program is provided to children who are over
the age of four years and nine months and not yet
enrolled in school, and the program is operated no
more than 16 hours per week and no more than 12 weeks
or less during a 12 month period.
C. The program is provided to children under the age
of four years and nine months with sessions that run
12 hours per week or less, and are 12 weeks or less
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in duration, and may permit children to be
consecutively enrolled in subsequent sessions so long
as the hours per week do not exceed 12 hours.
6. Requires every public recreation program employer to
require each employee or new employee, to submit one set
of fingerprints to the Department of Justice as a
condition of employment.
7. Prohibits a county, city, city and county, or special
district from hiring an employee or volunteer to perform
services at a county, city, city and county, or special
district operated park, playground, recreational center,
or beach used for recreational purposes, in a position
having supervisory or disciplinary authority over a
minor, if that person has been convicted of specified
criminal offenses.
This bill:
1. Increases the number of weeks and hours that public
recreation programs serving grades K-12 may operate from
12 weeks and 16 hours per week to 14 weeks and 20 hours
per week.
2. Increases the number of weeks and hours that public
recreation programs serving children who are over the
age of four years and nine months and not yet enrolled
in school may operate from 12 weeks and 16 hours per
week to 14 weeks and 20 hours per week.
Background
Child care licensing . The California Child Day Care
Facilities Act defines licensure requirements for the
operation of child day care facilities, day care centers
and family day care homes. California Code of Regulations
defines personal rights guarantees for children in such
programs, including "to be accorded safe, healthful and
comfortable accommodations ? (and) to be free from corporal
or unusual punishment, infliction of pain, humiliation,
intimidation, ridicule, coercion, threat, mental abuse or
other actions of a punitive nature..."
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Currently, 14 entity types are exempted from licensure
including health facilities, clinics, community care
facilities, family day care homes, unpaid cooperative
arrangements, care of children by a relative, public
recreation programs, extended day care programs operated by
public or private schools, school parenting or adult
education child care programs, a child care program that
operates only once per week for four hours, temporary child
care services, any program that provides instructional
activities for children that is operated when school is not
in session and whose session do not exceed a specified
number of days, a substance abuse treatment program as
specified and, until January 2014, crisis nurseries.
Some examples of the regulation topics from which these
programs are exempted from are promulgated under Title 22
Child Care Center General
Licensing Requirements and include regulations pertaining
to:
Disaster and Mass Casualty Plans
Fire Clearance
Capacity Determinations
Teacher and Teacher Aide Qualifications and Duties
Teacher-Child Ratios
Staffing for Water Activities
Injury Reporting
Discipline
Nutrition and Food Service
Sign In and Sign Out
Smoking Prohibition
Regulation of Public Recreation Programs . This bill's
sponsor states that public recreation employees are
directly hired by the public entity and are not vendors or
contracted. Existing law duplicates some of these exempted
regulations in various sections of code. For example,
Public Resources Code (PRC) Section 5164 prohibits a
county, city, city and county, or special district from
hiring an employee or volunteer to perform services at a
county, city, city and county, or special district operated
park, playground, recreational center, or beach used for
recreational purposes, in a position having supervisory or
disciplinary authority over a minor, if that person has
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been convicted of specified criminal offenses.
Additionally, PRC Section 5163 requires all employees of a
city or county working in connection with a park,
playground, recreational center or beach used for
recreational purposes requiring contact with children or as
a food concessionaire to demonstrate they have been
screened for tuberculosis.
Some public recreational programs are financially
self-sustaining, as the programs charge fees to
participants, and in some instances generate surplus
revenue for public agencies. The costs for programs to
obtain licensure through Department of Social Services have
been estimated in some counties to be around $10,000.
Proposition 49 . In 2002, California voters passed
Proposition 49, which established the After School
Education and Safety Program, providing for license-exempt
after school programs for individuals between 15-30 hours
per week a minimum and at least until 6:00 p.m. In order
to eligible for this program and this exemption, the agency
is required to operate its program under the provisions of
a grant from the California Department of Education, and
provide at least 50% cash or in-kind local matching funds.
A program operated under this law is required to contain
educational elements, as defined, and to comply with
various reporting and outcomes requirements.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 6/26/12)
California Park and Recreation Society (source)
Cities of Culver City, Long Beach, and Santa Ana
Fulton-El Camino Recreation and Park District
Mission Oaks Recreation and Park District
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author's office,
the current recession has forced many parents to take on
more work and to seek day care alternatives through
after-school programs run by park and recreation districts
throughout the state. According to the author's office,
the current limit on the number of hours and weeks a
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program may operate prevents the programs from meeting the
needs of many families and children supervised afterschool.
The author's office points out that many schools end at
2:30 pm which means that the program must end at 5:30 pm to
remain under the 16 hour per week limit. The author's
office states that families in need of both before-school
and after-school programming may not receive it as a result
of the weekly hour limit. The author's office further
states that the hour per week cap also impacts the ability
to accommodate for schools' early release days, school
holidays, teacher work days, and other school schedule
challenges.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 72-0, 5/3/12
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall,
Bill Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bradford, Brownley,
Buchanan, Butler, Charles Calderon, Campos, Carter,
Cedillo, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Davis, Dickinson,
Donnelly, Eng, Feuer, Fong, Fuentes, Beth Gaines,
Galgiani, Garrick, Gatto, Gordon, Gorell, Grove, Hagman,
Halderman, Harkey, Hayashi, Hill, Huber, Hueso, Huffman,
Jeffries, Knight, Lara, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma,
Mansoor, Mendoza, Miller, Mitchell, Monning, Morrell,
Nestande, Nielsen, Norby, Olsen, Pan, Perea, V. Manuel
Pérez, Portantino, Silva, Skinner, Solorio, Swanson,
Torres, Valadao, Wagner, Wieckowski, Yamada, John A.
Pérez
NO VOTE RECORDED: Bonilla, Fletcher, Furutani, Hall, Roger
Hernández, Jones, Smyth, Williams
CTW:k 6/26/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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