BILL NUMBER:  S6450

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

 PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL :

To provide greater protection to families in regard to child care
operations by mandating the office of children and family services to
investigate 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 the term
"Internet advertisement," which shall mean any advertising of child
day care services through the medium of the Internet.

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 Internet 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.

 JUSTIFICATION :

This legislation will give OCFS the affirmative duty to investigate
and audit childcare operations that are using the Internet to
advertise services in New York State. These investigations will help
to reduce the number of illegal childcare services operating, and
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 childcare operations advertising
services online. The Comptroller also discovered that childcare
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 parents have the resources
that will guide them toward legal child day care services by working
to shut down those day care services advertising illegal services.

 PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :

2016: S.1706-A - Vetoed Memo No. 264

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :

Undetermined

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act shall take effect immediately.