Higher standard for day care

By The Gazette Editorial Board

----

Iowa is home to thousands of home-based day cares. Many parents prefer them to larger facilities because of their flexibility and their familial atmospheres.

But not all home-based day cares are alike. Under Iowa law, if a day care provider cares for five or fewer children, they aren't required to be licensed by or registered with the state.

That's true even if the day care receives a state child care subsidy for parents moving from welfare to work. But providers should be held to a higher standard when the state - the taxpayer - is footing the bill. Only registered day care providers should be eligible providers for the state's Child Care Assistance program.

Failing that, all providers receiving state subsidies should be subject to the same requirements of licensed and registered in-home day cares.

The state's Child Care Assistance program makes direct day care payments to providers of qualifying families so that parents can work, look for work or train for employment. It's an important hand-up for families struggling with poverty.

Subsidized parents can choose their own providers - including non-registered child care facilities, relatives and baby sitters - as long as they are approved by the Iowa Department of Human Services.

But a recent KCRG-TV9 investigation found that the DHS list of approved providers included unlicensed, in-home day care providers with criminal records. The DHS approval process doesn't include a federal criminal background check.

One provider, since removed from the list, is now in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm - she has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, KCRG-TV9 found.

Sixteen percent of the 23,000 children covered under the program attend unregistered home-based day cares, according to KCRG's report. Those payments account for about $10.4 million of the $80 million the state paid last year on the child care subsidies.

Registered in-home providers must have their homes inspected. They must take 12 hours a year of ongoing training. They must be certified in CPR and pass child abuse reporter training and state and federal background checks - “All good stuff to know anyway,” as Family Home Child Care Association President Margie Fuller told us this week.

“To be a dog groomer, a hairdresser, you have to be licensed,” she said. Why isn't that true for all day cares?

Previous attempts to tighten regulation of small in-home day care operations have failed. Opponents say if a family wants to pay an unlicensed and unregistered provider, it's none of the state's business.

But it is the state's business when they're the ones cutting the checks, and only licensed in-home providers should be able to cash them.

n Comments: thegazette.com/

category/opinion/editorial or

editorial@sourcemedia.net