BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2621|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2621
Author: Garcia (D) and Olsen (R), et al.
Amended: 6/26/14 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE : 4-0, 6/24/14
AYES: Beall, DeSaulnier, Liu, Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Berryhill
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 78-0, 5/28/14 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Child day care facilities: licensing information
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill requires the Department of Social Service
(DSS) to make specified licensing information regarding day care
centers and homes available on its Internet Web site and to
update the information monthly.
ANALYSIS :
Existing Law:
1. Establishes the California Child Day Care Facilities Act
(Act) to provide for the licensure and regulation of child
day care and family day care facilities as a separate
licensing category within the existing licensing structure of
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DSS.
2. Provides for the DSS licensure and regulation of small family
day care homes serving between six and eight children, as
specified, in a residentially zoned and occupied property.
3. Requires child care facilities and homes licensed by DSS to
be subject to unannounced visits by DSS and requires DSS to
visit facilities as often as necessary to ensure the quality
of care provided.
This bill:
1. Codifies existing practice to require DSS to post licensing
information on its Internet Web site as follows:
For each child day care facility, as defined, except
small family day care home, the information shall include,
but is not limited to, the name and address of the
facility, the status of the license, and the number of site
visits, including the number of substantiated and
inconclusive complaint inspections, noncomplaint
inspections, and citations assessed during the preceding
five-year period.
For each small family day care home, the information
shall include, but is not limited to, the name of the home,
the status of the license, and the number of site visits,
including the number of substantiated and inconclusive
complaint inspections, noncomplaint inspections, and
citations assessed during the preceding five-year period.
2. Requires DSS to update the information posted pursuant to
these provisions at least monthly.
Background
The Act requires the licensing and regulation by DSS of more
than 11,100 licensed child care facilities and 33,300 licensed
family day care homes. In addition to licensed child care
facilities, the Act establishes license-exempt providers
including relatives, child care cooperative arrangements, as
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defined, extended care programs operated by public or private
schools with 85% of children served from that school, day care
where only one additional family is served and nanny services,
including nanny shares, as specified.
The Community Care Licensing (CCL) division of DSS provides the
primary public oversight over the quality and care provided in
licensed child care facilities and homes. Prior to January
2004, CCL conducted annual visits of all child care facilities
and homes as well as other licensed facilities within its
jurisdiction. However, as a result of a series of budget cuts
beginning in 2003, CCL began inspecting facilities based on a
random sample protocol. Under this scenario, those facilities
that warrant close monitoring because of a poor history of
compliance are monitored annually, as well as facilities that
are federally required to be inspected annually. Typically,
this comprises about 10% of all facilities. Of the remaining
90%, approximately 30% are randomly selected for inspection each
year. The current five-year inspection mandate was intended to
catch facilities that are not randomly selected at least that
often for inspection.
Transparency . Existing law requires DSS to post the results of
a site visit on, or immediately adjacent to, the interior side
of the main door of a child care facility including information
regarding whether the facility was cited for a violation, the
nature of that violation, as specified, and to include a
statement explaining that copies of the site visit report may be
obtained by contacting DSS. The notice is required to remain
posted for 30 consecutive days, except that a family day care
home is required to maintain the posting only during the hours
when clients are present. Also, the facility must provide
copies of a licensing report that documents serious, Type A
citations, to the parents or guardians of each child receiving
services, and for each newly enrolled child.
Licensed child day care facilities additionally are required to
make accessible to the public a copy of any licensing report
that documents a facility visit, a substantiated complaint
investigation, a conference with a local licensing agency
management representative and the licensee in which issues of
noncompliance are discussed, or a copy of an accusation
indicating DSS's intent to revoke the facility's license.
Licensing documents are not required to be maintained beyond
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three years from the date of issuance.
Further, state funded child care resource and referral programs
and alternative payment programs are required to advise parents
who request referrals of their right to seek and access
licensing information from the CCL Division of DSS.
DSS publishes on its Internet Web site a webpage in which the
public can search for providers of child care by zip code.
Information found on the Web site includes the facility's
license number, its capacity and which DSS district office
houses additional materials. However, the Web site does not
provide information about citations or sanctions against
providers. The primary reason for this is a technology barrier,
according DSS. Also, information public disclosure regarding
the location of small family homes, defined as caring for six or
fewer children, is prohibited under statute.
Currently, DSS licensing staff input survey results, including
citation information, into an antiquated word processing system,
Lotus Notes, that does not interact with any of DSS's other data
collection tools. As a result, DSS is unable to track patterns
of poor care within a single facility, or across facilities with
the same owner. DSS is also unable to upload information to its
Web site for the public to see citation information on
facilities. Efforts have been made to bridge the antiquated
field information system to interact with DSS's data collection
systems, including a grant from the California Health Care
Foundation in 2008. However the Lotus system is so old that
those technology patches have been unsuccessful. In order to
acquire additional information relating to the quality of a
facility, a person must either contact or travel to one of DSS's
eight regional licensing offices and request the information
pertaining to a specific facility.
In response to increased media coverage of incidents that have
occurred in licensed care facilities across the state, DSS
recently released an online database on its Web site to provide
more robust information about licensed facilities. This bill
seeks to codify the establishment of this database which
currently includes the following:
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The name of the facility and licensee;
Contact information for the facility and its licensed
capacity;
The number of site visits, and the dates of those visits;
The number of inspections, complaint investigations, and other
visits the facility has received; and
The number of substantiated and inconclusive complaints filed
against the facility, including complaint severity and whether
a complaint resulted in a citation.
Comment
According to the author, California law fails to provide easily
accessible means for parents to learn about inspection and
complaint reports that have been filed against state-licensed
day care, preschool and after-school programs. The author
states that "families entrusting the care of their children
assume that lawmakers have provided them protection against
child care facilities that violate the law, but reporting a
violation means nothing if the information is not made
transparent to families."
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/6/14)
California Alternative Payment Program
California Child Care Resource and Referral Network
California PTA
Children Now
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 78-0, 5/28/14
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian
Calderon, Campos, Chau, Ch�vez, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley,
Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dickinson, Donnelly, Eggman, Fong, Fox,
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Beth Gaines, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gorell,
Gray, Grove, Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Roger Hern�ndez, Holden,
Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Logue, Lowenthal,
Maienschein, Mansoor, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Muratsuchi,
Nazarian, Nestande, Olsen, Pan, Patterson, Perea, John A.
P�rez, V. Manuel P�rez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon,
Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Wagner,
Waldron, Weber, Wieckowski, Wilk, Williams, Yamada, Atkins
NO VOTE RECORDED: Frazier, Vacancy
JL:d 8/6/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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