Children play in a child care facility. (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent)

Two bill packages — one seeking to lower child care costs and expand options, especially in areas without significant child care options, and the other to clarify child neglect and abuse statutes — passed through the Senate Housing and Human Services committee Tuesday morning.

Only two of the bills in the first package, which would essentially codify the state’s Tri-Share program and adjust reimbursements under that program, which provides child care benefits to families under a certain income threshold by splitting the cost of an employee’s child care between the employer, the employee and the State of Michigan, faced opposition from the Republican members of the committee, still passing on party lines.

In a hearing on the bills earlier in March, state Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-West Bloomfield, who sponsored one of the bills in the package, said that the child care system is “in crisis,” which is having a $2.9 billion annual economic impact on the state.

“The system is shrinking. Families can’t afford or find accessible child care providers,” Bayer said. “Providers are losing employees, shrinking or even closing down, and families are struggling to pay for services if they can find one, with costs often over $1,100 a month.”

“The astronomical cost of child care, coupled with the hoops and hurdles providers must jump through to stay open, continues to fuel a crisis that impacts our families, workforce, and broader state economy,” said state Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, sponsor of Senate Bill 313, one of the bills which passed unanimously, in a press release following the vote. “By cutting some of the costs and red tape facing providers, we can start to address the child care deserts that exist throughout the state, especially in our rural communities.”

Before the vote, state Sen. Sylvia Santana, D-Warrendale, emphasized that, though she supports the bills, she also hoped to see further conversations about the impacts of these bills on businesses offering child care programs — which state Sen. Jonathan Lindsey, R-Coldwater, added could call into question the need for MiLEAP, the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, more broadly.

“If we’re serious and we’re dedicated to making sure that access to child care is available, definitely there needs to be more oversight in this area, and also maybe just a really a deep dive into how these rules in this book reflect when it comes to the actual common sense of child care and those provisions that we’ve put in place,” Santana said. “So I’m dedicated to this package of bills. I don’t mind getting it out of committee, but I do want to have a broader conversation with stakeholders, as well as those business owners who are definitely feeling the pinch of some of the rules within this book that may not make common sense at this point for them to be able to really continue as business owners.”

The other two bills in that package, which would establish a review and appeal process for certain violations of child care organization rules and set in place standards for investigations, passed unanimously.

Both bills in the second package on altering the child abuse and neglect statutes also passed unanimously. They would specify the definitions of child neglect and abuse, specifically excluding “independent activities” such as walking or bicycling to school or playing outdoors from qualifying under child neglect and abuse statutes.

“The idea is to make sure that our childhood welfare laws are aligned with reasonable childhood independence and that parents child care providers, first responders, schools, day cares, everyone has the right information about what is neglect and abuse and what is not, so that we can reduce the number of false reports and unneeded investigations,” said committee chair Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, who sponsored one of the bills, in an earlier committee hearing on the legislation.

All of the bills will now be reported to the full Senate for a vote.

———

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit. For more, go to https://michiganadvance.com.