Amending various rules promulgated by the Department of Children and Families governing the certification of child care operators, governing the licensing of child welfare agencies, and establishing standards for the operation of child care centers; and eliminating rules promulgated by the Department of Children and Families related to retaining public assistance case records

DCF's current rules allow any county or tribal agency's action to deny, suspend, revoke, or refuse to renew a child care operator's certification to be appealed under administrative procedures that apply to local units of government. The bill amends DCF rules to specify that an action by DCF to deny, suspend, revoke, or refuse to renew a child care operator's certification in a county with a population of 750,000 or more may be appealed under administrative procedures that apply to state agencies.

DCF's current rules also require a family child care operator or in-home child care operator to demonstrate to a county or tribal agency that he or she is free from tuberculosis prior to certification and recertification, and allows the agency to accept tuberculosis test results only if administered up to 12 months before the certification application date. This bill amends DCF rules to require a child care provider to demonstrate that he or she is free from tuberculosis prior to the date the provider began working with children and to allow a certification agency to accept the results of a tuberculosis test administered up to 12 months prior to the date the provider began working with children.

Child care center operations Under current law, no person may for compensation provide care and supervision for four or more children under the age of seven for less than 24 hours a day unless that person obtains from DCF a license to operate a child care center.

Current law requires DCF to promulgate rules establishing standards for the operation of child care centers.

Those rules include a rule requiring a child care center providing care and supervision for not more than eight children (family child care center) to provide written information to parents on whether the family child care center has insurance coverage on vehicles, if transportation is provided by the family child care center.

This bill eliminates that requirement.

Those rules also include a rule requiring a family child care center to maintain for each child enrolled in the family child care center a written record of enrollment information and health history on a form provided by DCF. This bill requires enrollment information and health history to be maintained on separate forms provided by DCF.

In addition, those rules include: 1) a rule requiring a child receiving care from a family child care center or a child care center providing care and supervision for more than eight children (group child care center) to have an initial health examination no later than three months after being admitted to the child care center and to have followup health examinations at certain intervals after that; and 2) a rule requiring a report on such a health examination to be made on a form provided by DCF that is signed and dated by a licensed physician, physician assistant, or HealthCheck provider, which is a provider of health assessment and evaluation services certified by the Department of Health Services. This bill permits a health examination report to be made on an electronic printout from a licensed physician, physician assistant, or HealthCheck provider.

Current law permits DCF to award staff retention grants and quality improvement grants to child care providers that meet certain quality of care standards established under rules promulgated by DCF. Current law, however, does not allocate any moneys for those grants. This bill eliminates those rules.

Finally, the bill corrects, in the DCF rules relating to child care, certain cross-references to the rules governing the responsibilities and qualifications of group child care center program directors, teachers, and assistant teachers.

Child welfare agency licensing Under current law, no person may provide care and maintenance for four or more children for 75 days in a 12-month period unless the person obtains from DCF a license to operate a child welfare agency. A child welfare agency license is valid until revoked or suspended, but must be reviewed every two years. To continue a child welfare agency license for an additional two years, a child welfare agency must submit an application for continuance of the license to DCF at least 30 days prior to the continuation date of the license. If DCF approves the application, DCF must continue the license for an additional two years.

Current rules promulgated by DCF governing the licensing of child welfare agencies, however, require a subsequent application by a child welfare agency to be submitted to DCF at least three weeks prior to the expiration of the current license.

This bill conforms those rules to the statutes by modifying those rules to require a subsequent application by a child welfare agency to be submitted to DCF at least 30 days prior to the continuation date of the current license.

Public assistance records Under current DCF rules, a county, tribal, or W-2 agency that contracts with DCF to administer one or more public assistance programs (income maintenance agency) is required to retain certain items used to verify information related to a public assistance case for certain amounts of time. For example, under current DCF rules, an income maintenance agency must retain items to verify an applicant's social security number, birth information, alien status, and medicare enrollment, if required to determine eligibility for public assistance, while the public assistance case is open. Current DCF rules also provide the conditions under which original case records that are copied in microfilm reproduction, optical disk, or electronic format may be destroyed. Finally, current DCF rules require that destruction of public assistance records must be done in a manner that make the records unreadable. This bill eliminates DCF's rules related to retaining public assistance case records.