The first overhaul to the state's licensing requirements for child care centers in more than 45 years failed Friday to move past a governor-appointed commission.
For the second time in nearly two weeks, the Arkansas Early Childhood Commission was unable to vote on the proposal because not enough members were present to constitute a quorum.
A sufficient number of members also failed to show up at the commission's July 15 regular meeting.
The teleconference, which was scheduled to begin officially at 10:30 a.m. Friday, was delayed for nearly half an hour because Commission Chairman Jackie Govan said only 12 members were present. The 25-member board requires 13 members present.
Department of Human Services clerks phoned individual members to request their attendance before Govan announced at 10:54 a.m. that Commissioner Ava Coleman was calling into the meeting, therefore establishing a voting quorum.
The commission took only minutes, with no discussion, to approve the proposal in its entirety and also to extend the proposed grace period to four years for existing child care centers to comply with new staff-to-child ratios.
That decision, hours later, was voided when Govan sent an email Friday afternoon that officials had mistakenly counted a department staff member as a commissioner and that a quorum was actually not present during the telephone meeting.
"What this means is that we will need to vote again. I want to remind everyone that if you cannot attend the conference call to vote, you can send a written vote to one of your commissioners or to the commission chair," Govan wrote in the email to panel members and staff.
Voting outside of a public meeting is a violation of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
When contacted about the issue, Department of Human Services spokesman Kate Luck said in an email late Friday that written votes would violate the Freedom of Information Act.
"Our attorneys were not notified before this notice went out so we were not able to catch it. We will be educating all our commission members across all our divisions on how to conduct meetings and votes in a way that ensures accuracy and transparency and does not violate FOI law. We want to operate in a way that is very open and accessible. We apologize for any inconvenience," Luck said.
The commission had called Friday's teleconference after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette took issue with a plan to vote by email -- instead of meeting -- after the panel failed to reach a quorum at its July 15 regularly scheduled meeting. The Arkansas attorney general's office notified the commission later that day that an email vote outside the meeting would violate the Freedom of Information Act.
The Arkansas Early Childhood Commission's proposed changes to child care center regulations come after years of planning, numerous public hearings, dozens of revisions and an overwhelming response from the state's child care providers, parents and legislators.
The proposal -- which includes new director qualification requirements, revised staff-to-child ratios, additional playground equipment restrictions and hundreds of other changes -- will have to be approved by the commission and then sent to two legislative committees for review before being it can be implemented.
The commission voted Friday, before it was determined the meeting was invalid, to extend the proposed grace period to four years for existing child care centers to comply with the new staff-to-child ratios.
The Department of Human Services' Childcare and Early Childhood Education Division initially had proposed that existing centers be given two years to come into compliance with the new regulations. Hundreds of child care providers spoke out against the proposal during the public comment period, saying the cost to carry out the regulation would cause an increase in rates and could put some centers out of business.
Arkansas is one of 13 states that do not meet the staff-to-child ratios recommended by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
The new proposal calls for staff-to-child ratios to be altered from current ratios of:
• One staff member for every six children to one staff member for every five children, from birth to 18 months old.
• One staff member for every nine children to one staff member for every eight children, from 18 months to 36 months old.
• One staff member for every 20 children to one staff member for every 18 children, kindergarten age and older.
Geania Dickey, childhood-services coordinator for Arkansas State University, said in a telephone interview after Friday's meeting that she was glad that the commission opted for the shorter four-year grace period, over the six-year period recommended at a July 15 meeting.
At that meeting, Dickey tearfully implored the commission to alter the ratios and shorten the grace period, especially for children in the birth-to-18-month-old classroom.
On Friday, Dickey praised David Griffin, the associate director of Arkansas' Childcare and Early Childhood Education Division, and the Department of Human Services for the time and work taken to revamp the regulations.
"They have done a very nice job of trying to move things forward in a very practical way that's not burdensome to small businesses," Dickey said. "It will move us forward and really give people a better foundation from which to start. I'm very excited about it."
Nicole Loftus, owner of Challenger Plus preschool in Bryant, said Friday that the new staff-to-child ratios would not affect her business because she always has maintained a lower ratio than what the state required.
"All in all, I think it's great," Loftus said. "A lot of those changes should have been made a long time ago."
State Desk on 07/26/2014