Governor George Pataki came to Long Island last month to sign the Quality Child Care Protection Act, which is designed to improve the quality and safety of child day care in New York. This bill came partially in response to Long Island media coverage about day care violations slipping through the cracks.

One day care center which was featured in a series of articles about the less than stellar conditions at many centers was right in Levittown, raising the concern and awareness of many local officials.

New York State Assemblywoman Kathleen Murray and Senator Kemp Hannon were among the Long Island contingent supporting this measure which requires that child day care providers comply with criminal history screening requirements, requires those providers to be inspected prior to the issuance of a registration, and imposes civil penalties for the violation of statutory or regulatory requirements. These measures will be overseen by the Office of Child and Family Services.

These new laws affect not only new day care providers, but those who are already in business. When a person applying to operate or work in a day care center or one currently operating or working in a day care center has a conviction for serious crimes such as a sexual offense, child abuse or a drug dealing offense, the application would be denied unless the Office of Child and Family Services determines that approval of the application will not jeopardize the health, safety, or welfare of children in the program.

"Before we did the the criminal background check, people could slip through the system and become day care workers without the day care operator, who could be operating in very good faith, being a very good operator, knowing, because they had no means by which to investigate the criminal background of the person, so this provides a very important tool to them," noted Murray.

Not only will those working at the day care providers have to undergo background checks, but in recognition of the fact that there are many day care facilities being run out of private homes, under this legislation, any person over the age of 18 living in the home must also be fingerprinted and have a criminal history check done.

The state legislature has established monetary fines for any violations. It doubles the maximum daily fine for violations from $250 per day to $500 per day and requires home-based day care centers to be fined for failing to obtain a license or registration and reduces the ability of providers to avoid a fine by rectifying a violation after the fact.

In addition the bill establishes an 800 number where parents or concerned residents can call to make complaints. If a complaint is lodged about a day care provider the Office of Child and Family Services would commence an investigation.

Under the new legislation, the Office of Child and Family Services will be required to inspect 30 percent of the registered providers by the end of 2000 and 50 percent by the end of 2001. Previously the inspection requirements were much lower. Murray explained that it is important that the legislature remain cognizant of these guidelines and provide the budgetary funding in future years to ensure that 100 percent of the centers and providers are inspected in the future. Parents or guardians who would like to determine whether or not their child's day care provider is among those that have been inspected and to determine whether any violations have been found can contact the Office of Child and Family Services.

In response to the enlightenment about the inadequate investigative arm of the Office of Child and Family Services, but prior to the passage of the Quality Child Care Protection Act, the governor infused an emergency $8 million specifically to have more personnel trained as field investigators for that department.

Additionally, explained Murray, this new legislation also requires that all day care personnel, both those new to the business and those already providing care, go through 30 hours of training every two years in such things as the nutrition and health needs of infants and children, program development, safety and security procedures, child abuse and maltreatment identification and prevention, and different aspects that a day care provider would potentially be involved in on a daily basis. This training is done by the Office of Child and Family Services.

"The Quality Child Care and Protection Act will give New York a day care work force that is free of dangerous criminals and is well-trained to take care of children. Just as importantly, it will expand the state's oversight of day care providers and allow us to impose tough penalties on providers who break the law or fail to take good care of our children," said Hannon.

Another important aspect of this legislation is an increase in grants pertaining to day care. There are income-based grants for parents, in a sense ensuring that parents, without consideration of cost, can receive the best child care possible. In addition, there will be grants provided for day care workers. According to Murray, this is in response to the concern that people in these service industries are really nominally paid thus making the flight out of this industry very high. As a result, there is a constant turnover of staff, which is not in the best interests of children. In response to these concerns, one of the last parts of the Quality Child Protection Act provides grants for day care workers for salary enhancements and professional advancement, as a financial incentive for people to go on for better schooling and to stay in the field. According to Murray the recruitment and retention issue was a very big concern, so the bill provides an incentive for day care workers to better themselves, educate themselves within the industry and keep their level of experience within the industry.

"This legislation was certainly important, not only to the residents of Levittown, but across the state because the need for day care services is growing by leaps and bounds, not only in Levittown, but across the nation so we, as a government, have to step in and protect our most vulnerable citizens, and those, of course, are our children," concluded Murray.