BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
BILL NO: AB 1991
A
AUTHOR: Smyth
B
VERSION: February 23, 2012
HEARING DATE: June 12, 2012
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FISCAL: Yes
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9
CONSULTANT: Sara Rogers
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SUBJECT
Child care licensing exemptions: public recreation programs
SUMMARY
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.
ABSTRACT
Current law
1.Provides for the licensing and regulation of child day
care facilities under the Department of Social Services
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,
Continued---
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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:
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.
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.
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 in
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duration, and may permit children to be consecutively
enrolled in subsequent sessions so long as the hours
per week do not exceed 12 hours.
1.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.
2.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.
FISCAL IMPACT
According to Assembly Appropriations Committee, costs
associated with this bill are minor and absorbable.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
According to the author, the current recession has forced
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 1991 (Smyth) Page
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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, the current limit on the number of hours and
weeks a program may operate prevents the programs from
meeting the needs of many families and children supervised
afterschool. The author 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
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 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.
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..."
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.
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 1991 (Smyth) Page
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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
The 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, 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 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.
Education Code Section requires employees of public
recreation programs to submit a fingerprint and criminal
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 1991 (Smyth) Page
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background check prior to employment. Additionally,
existing law provides for the regulation of building
standards for parks and schools including fire prevention
and safety, plumbing and equipment installation standards
necessary to protect health and safety.
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 DSS 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.
Related Legislation
SB 1312 (Smyth, 2011) - Identical to AB 1991 (Smyth).
SB 1087 (Walters, 2012) - Would double, from 30 to 60, the
hours per week that an after school program may operate,
and makes changes relative to the regulation of organized
camps.
SB 737 (Walters, 2011) - Nearly identical to SB 1087. This
bill was vetoed by the Governor with the message: "I agree
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with the author's intent to clarify and simplify the
regulation of organized camps, but this measure does not
achieve this goal. I am directing the Department of Public
Health and Department of Social Services to work with the
author and interested advocates to resolve this issue in
the coming year."
POSITIONS
Support: California Parks and Recreation Society
City of Santa Ana
Fulton-El Camino Recreation and Park
District
Mission Oaks Recreation and Park District
Oppose: None received
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