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Relating to the regulation of child-care facilities and family homes; providing administrative penalties.
SB 568 would (1) direct administrative penalties to be deposited into a "Safety Training Account"; (2) establish safe sleeping standards; (3) require HHSC to post relevant inspection information for all child-care facilities licensed or family homes registered under this chapter; (4) require license or registration holders to maintain liability insurance coverage, with certain exceptions; (5) allow HHSC to place restrictions on a license for repeated violations and prohibit renewal for a violation that is not corrected by the required compliance date; (6) notify parents or guardians of certain incidents; and (7) establish new administrative penalties.
Most of the provisions of this legislation are designed to curb bad actors within the licensed daycare industry, bring out-of-compliance facilities into compliance, and ensure that parents are notified of serious incidents. We do not view setting safe sleeping standards as the proper role of the state.
Much like nutrition guidelines, infant sleeping guidelines have greatly changed over the years. When the government sets standards, and the standards later change due to new research, the government creates confusion. Also, we are concerned that state-mandated safe sleeping standards for daycare could later be imposed in the home which would violate the rights of parents and represent a significant government intrusion into the daily lives of Texans. For these reasons, we suggest an amendment to withdraw the safe sleeping standards provision of this bill. Should such an amendment be adopted we would withdraw our objection.
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