Wyoming

Childcare regulation is a problem nationwide. Most providers don't want more training. They work 60 hours a week at jobs that pay little or nothing, and the idea that they spend more time on the job to learn about the job they do all day already with no promise of more money is not a huge incentive.

Star Tribune
Jackson Hole

Trimmed-down Child Care Bill Squeaks by in Senate
By BRODIE FARQUHAR
Star-Tribune capital bureau

CHEYENNE in A House bill designed to create a ranking system for child care operations survived a close vote on the Senate floor Monday evening, with 18 "yes" votes in the 30-member chamber.

Originally calling for funding to train day care workers and subsidize day care for at-risk children, House Bill 92 has been whittled down to a one-year study and formation of an oversight committee at a cost of about $1.3 million. But supporters had to work hard Monday in the Senate to keep the bill alive.

It must be approved two more times in the Senate before going to the governor for his signature.

Debate on the measure was less ideological than it was in the House last week. No one came out against improving day care in Wyoming, though some senators expressed doubt that the Department of Family Services could do the job. Another senator doubted that the targeting of the bill would really reach at-risk children.

Sen. Curt Meier, R-LaGrange, and Senate President Grant Larson, R-Jackson, cast doubt on whether Family Services could do an efficient job with improving the quality of day care in Wyoming, citing past management audits.

Sen. Charles Scott, R-Casper, said that Family Services has new people and new approaches to solving problems very different from the past. Indeed, Scott said this approach to improving day care is based not on heavy-handed rules and regulations, but on a voluntary partnership with private businesses.

Sen. Phil Nicholas, R-Laramie, expressed doubt that the proposed program would reach very many poor, at-risk families. Instead, he predicted that middle-class and even affluent parents would benefit disproportionately.

Sen. Mike Massie, D-Laramie, said he didn’t read the bill’s language that way. “I see a glass half-full, where you see it half-empty,” he said.

Massie, who shepherded the bill on the Senate floor, emphasized that the program would be entirely voluntary and address a critical problem in the state too many day care operations are unlicensed and will remain so without incentives to come within the system.

Massie said Family Services can use the program to encourage development of day care services where they are most needed in the state.

He readily acknowledged that parents are critically important to raising children, and said this bill recognizes that with education for parents, as well as a suite of other services that address public and mental health, job training for parents and early intervention for at-risk children.

Meier questioned what kind of social development would be instilled in children, referring to boorish behavior the night before on the Academy Awards.

Scott said to forget Hollywood as not relevant. “What we’re talking about are the basics that kids need to be taught, like how to share.” Public school teachers are seeing more and more problems and some real tragedies, he said, and early intervention is the only possible solution.