BILL NUMBER:S1706

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the social services law, in relation
to investigation of illegally operating child day care services

PURPOSE:

To provide greater protection to families in regard to child care
operations by mandating the office of children and family services to
investigate and audit current child care operations advertising their
services in New York State.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 of this bill amends subdivision 1 of section 390 of the
Social Services Law by adding a new paragraph (g) to define
"advertisement," which shall mean any advertising of child day care
services through the medium of internet, radio broadcast, television
broadcast, newspapers, periodicals or other publications, outdoor
advertisements, or any other printed or graphic matter, including
booklets, flyers or cards.

Section 2 of this bill renumbers subdivisions 11, 12 and 13 to 12, 13,
and 14, and a new subdivision 11 is added to provide that the Office
of Children and Family Services (OCFS) periodically review at least
once a month any advertisements offering child day care services. The
              

review must include advertisements from each county in New York State.
Further, OCFS must adopt a procedure to implement this review.  This
procedure has to include identification and further investigation of
providers who are not registered or licensed, and cannot provide the
child day care services to an additional child without violating this
section or any regulations promulgated from this section.

Section 3 of this bill provides that this act shall take effect
immediately.

EXISTING LAW:

Currently, there is no affirmative duty to investigate on the part of
the office of children and family services. Their only obligation is
to review any complaints they receive from the hotline in regard to
child care operations. They do not have to conduct any regular
investigations or audits. Their only responsibility is to react to any
complaint, but not take charge and review these operations
independently.

JUSTIFICATION:

This legislation will give OCFS the affirmative duty to investigate
and audit child care operations advertising services in New York
State. This will help in reducing the number of illegal child care
services operating, and will also help to encourage licensed
operations to only take on children within the legal limit.

The State Comptroller conducted an audit in August 2014 of OCFS and
found that there were many illegal child care operations advertising


services online. The Comptroller also discovered that child care
operations were willing to take on children over the set legal limit.

This legislation would help to give OCFS the affirmative duty to
protect children by making sure that child day care providers are not
taking children over the legal limit, and making sure parents have the
resources that will guide them toward legal child day care services by
making sure those day care services advertising illegal services are
shut down.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None to the state.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

This act shall take effect immediately.