De-regulation will help address Idaho’s child care shortage crisis, bill co-sponsor Rep. Barbara Ehardt says. Critics worry bill guts key safety protections.

BOISE, ID – The Idaho House of Representatives widely passed a bill to let child care centers set their own child-to-staff ratios.

Aimed at addressing Idaho’s child care crisis by easing the process to operate child care centers, House Bill 243, is co-sponsored by Idaho Republican House lawmakers Reps. Barbara Ehardt, from Idaho Falls, and Rod Furniss, from Rigby.

The bill would repeal age-based child-to-staff ratios for child care facilities in Idaho law.

Instead of those standards, determined on a points-based system based on the ages of children in facilities, the bill would allow Idaho child care facilities to set their own child-to-staff ratios “appropriate to ensure the health, safety and welfare of all children in attendance.”

Ehardt said the new standard would be stronger than the current one required under Idaho law, and that Idaho would retain administrative rules in the Department of Health and Welfare focused on a range of safety issues in child care facilities.

“Isn’t that ultimately what we want? Because we could have a ratio of kids that were all troubled kids, and or incredibly active kids, or, you know, kids that were very difficult to handle. And that wouldn’t meet this standard,” Ehardt said.

On the House floor, Ehardt spent several minutes addressing what she called “disinformation” spread by opponents of the bill.

She stressed that the bill would not be eliminating child-to-staff ratios in child care facilities because Idaho regulations would still cap the maximum number of children that can be in facilities, based on their facility type.

Idaho House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said child care is “uniquely inappropriate for over de-regulation,” and that the bill “eliminates most of the state requirements around child safety in these facilities.”

“We talk about vulnerable populations. I don’t know what population is more vulnerable than 1 year olds,” she said. “These — they are very easily injured. They are non-verbal. They can’t tell us — they can’t identify abuse or problems or neglect. They can’t express it to people. … Parents are not coming into these places every five minutes. They’re dropping their kid off at 8 a.m. and maybe coming back at 5 p.m.”

Rubel said the bill totally eliminates ratios, which she assumed Idaho created for child care facilities because “something really bad happened.”

“That’s why they put in ratios, to make sure that there is adequate supervision in this incredibly delicate population, who can be so easily injured, who can choke on something in the blink of an eye if they’re not being watched — and if there aren’t adequate people to follow,” she said.

Bill would also repeal Idaho law that let local regulations be more strict than state law, effectively preempting local policies

The bill would also repeal a provision in Idaho law that allowed local regulations on child care facilities to be more stringent than standards in state law.

In floor debate, Ehardt said Idaho is one of four states that allows cities to “over-regulate,” and that city “over-regulation” on day cares has “shut many of them down.”

“There is a direct correlation — if you look back through the years — on the regulation, the decrease in day cares and the increase in costs, “ Ehardt told House lawmakers. “Costs have systematically risen and skyrocketed because of the lack of child care.”

Ehardt declared a conflict of interest on the House floor because she must abide by child care regulations because she works at Apple Athletic Club, which she said runs a preschool program.

The Idaho House passed the bill on a 54-15 vote Thursday, with one lawmaker absent.

The bill now heads to the Idaho Senate, where it could receive a committee hearing before a possible vote on the Senate floor.

To become law, Idaho bills must pass the House and Senate, and avoid the governor’s veto.

Ehardt, on the House floor, said big day care centers, who she said are most opposed to the bill, can still use whatever child-to-staff ratios they want.

“One of the main things I heard in the testimony — parents were demonized,” Ehardt said, calling the legislation another example of a “parental rights bill.”

“Because we trust our parents. … What we were hearing is that really ‘it’s government that has to dictate everything you do, because government knows best,’” Ehardt said. “We’re talking about our kids, and we’re talking about … who’s going to love them, who’s going to watch them, and protect them.”

Rep. Josh Wheeler, R-Ammon, agreed Idaho does and should trust parents. But he said parents “need to be given the information about these self-determined ratios with some of the facilities.”

“I just feel like this bill is in its infancy,” said Wheeler, who was among five Republican House lawmakers to vote against the bill, along with all nine House Democrats.

Under the bill, facilities shall comply with their child-to-staff ratios and make those ratios available to parents and guardians.

Bill would also repeal Idaho law allowing cities to further regulate child care facilities

Furniss, a cosponsor of the bill in the Idaho House, called deregulation “the Idaho way.”

“Money does not solve this crisis, but deregulation will solve this crisis,” said Furniss, saying Idaho has more than doubled funds for the child care system but has seen providers decline by 10%.

Rep. Marco Erickson, R-Idaho Falls, supported the bill, calling it “common sense legislation” and will “benefit our local communities.”

“I have a lot more faith in our families than what we’ve been seeing exhibited in … these debates,” Erickson said.

Idaho Voices for Children Executive Director Christine Tiddens told the Idaho Capital Sun she opposed the bill in committee, saying she couldn’t find out the effect of eliminating child-to-staff ratio standards “because no other state or developed nation that licenses child care has attempted anything like this before.”

“We did find plenty of research showing that if ratios become too flexible, children experience increased rates of injuries and death,” Tiddens told the Sun in an email, saying she shared these concerns with lawmakers in a House committee hearing on the bill.

“Considering that Idaho already ranks last in the nation for childcare regulation, why would we roll back childcare ratio and supervision requirements even more?” Tiddens told the Sun. “Stripping these key safety standards opens the door to operators and bad actors who cut corners to save costs. And in childcare settings, cutting corners results in babies being put in harm’s way.”

In an interview after the bill passed the House, Ehardt told the Sun state regulators would maintain their role in child care facility regulation — using existing safety regulations that the new bill wouldn’t touch.

Having only one staff-member-per-18-kids isn’t a safe ratio, she said, and “wouldn’t fit this standard.

“If that’s the way somebody starts to operate, then there would be grounds — they would not be meeting the law. And that could then be grounds for revocation of a license,” Ehardt told the Sun.

And she stressed that facilities can still maintain as much regulation as they want.

“To be honest, I don’t even see that as a bad thing. I really don’t. … It won’t even hurt them, in my opinion, for business — because the people who couldn’t go there, couldn’t go there because of cost,” Ehardt told the Sun.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.