BILL ANALYSIS |
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C.S.H.B. 3788 |
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By: Koop |
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Human Services |
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Committee Report (Substituted) |
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BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
According to interested parties, the current child-to-caregiver ratio and group size standards for Texas licensed day-care centers do not adequately safeguard the children in care, potentially exposing these children to serious risk of harm. C.S.H.B. 3788 seeks to provide the Department of Family and Protective Services with the necessary data to ensure children are in safe early‑learning environments.
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CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.
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RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
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ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 3788 amends the Human Resources Code to require the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), during each monitoring inspection of a licensed day-care center DFPS conducts between March 1, 2018, and May 31, 2018, and using existing resources, to collect the following data for each group of children four years of age and younger occupying an individual classroom or well-defined physical space within a larger room at the day-care center: the specified age of the children in the group as determined by the formula provided in the DFPS minimum standards for child-care centers, the number of children in the group, and the number of caregivers supervising the children in the group. The bill requires DFPS to make that collected data available to community agencies and institutions of higher education on request not later than June 30, 2018. The bill requires DFPS to collect the following information for each licensed day-care center from which DFPS collected data during a monitoring inspection conducted between March 1, 2018, and May 31, 2018, and requires DFPS to provide the information to community agencies and institutions of higher education on request: the licensed day-care center's program capacity; the number of confirmed serious injuries and fatalities for children four years of age and younger that occurred at the day-care center between September 1, 2017, and August 31, 2018, aggregated by the age of the injured or deceased child; the number of investigations DFPS conducted at the day-care center between September 1, 2017, and August 31, 2018, that involve a child who is four years of age or younger and that were assigned the highest priority or second-highest priority, aggregated by the age of the youngest affected child; and the total number of violations that DFPS found at the day-care center during those investigations. The bill includes a temporary provision set to expire September 1, 2019, setting these provisions to expire on that date.
C.S.H.B. 3788 requires DFPS, using existing resources, to provide an annual report to the legislature that includes the number of confirmed serious injuries and fatalities for children four years of age and younger that occurred at each licensed day-care center, aggregated by the age of the injured or deceased child; the priority assigned to the DFPS investigation conducted in response to an incident that resulted in a serious injury or a child fatality; the number of investigations conducted by DFPS at each licensed day-care center that involve a child four years of age or younger and that were assigned the highest priority or second-highest priority, aggregated by the age of the youngest affected child; and the number of violations DFPS found at each licensed day-care center during those investigations.
C.S.H.B. 3788 requires the executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission, not later than January 1, 2019, to use the data collected under the bill's provisions to determine whether to modify the standards related to child-to-caregiver ratios and group sizes. The bill requires the executive commissioner, in determining whether to modify the standards, to compare licensed day-care centers that meet the child-to-caregiver ratios and group size requirements with licensed day-care centers that have lower child-to-caregiver ratios. The bill requires the executive commissioner to recommend appropriate adjustments to any standards related to child-to-caregiver ratios or group sizes if the data shows that day-care centers that meet the minimum child-to-caregiver ratios and group size requirements have a rate that is 10 percent or higher than day-care centers with lower child-to-caregiver ratios of confirmed serious injuries, confirmed child fatalities, or investigations conducted by DFPS that are assigned the highest priority or the second-highest priority.
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EFFECTIVE DATE
On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2017.
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COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 3788 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and formatted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
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