FIRST REGULAR SESSION
94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES DONNELLY (Sponsor), ROBB, ZWEIFEL, YAEGER, STORCH, CURLS, LOW (39) AND BAKER (25) (Co-sponsors).
Read 1st time March 8, 2007 and copies ordered printed.
D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk
AN ACT
To amend chapter 210, RSMo, by adding thereto one new section relating to quality rating system for child care facilities.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:
Section A. Chapter 210, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 210.205, to read as follows:
210.205. 1. By January 1, 2008, the department of social services and the department of health and senior services, in collaboration with the department of elementary and secondary education, shall develop a voluntary quality rating system for child care facilities and early childhood programs operated in this state. Such ratings shall be built upon Missouri's current system of licensing and regulation. The base level of the rating system shall be licensing, and the highest level of the rating system shall be accreditation by a state or nationally recognized accrediting agency. The departments of social services and health and senior services shall utilize existing models developed from quality rating system pilots developed in Missouri.
2. The quality rating system shall:
(1) Provide information for consumers and parents to evaluate and select high quality early childhood programs;
(2) Create an accountability system for policymakers and those who fund early childhood programs;
(3) Guide providers through a system of ever increasing levels of quality with specific outcomes.
3. When fifty percent of all child care facilities and early childhood programs have been so rated, the coordinating board for early childhood, established under section 210.102, shall have developed a plan for a tiered system of reimbursement for child care subsidies based on the quality rating system established under this section. The plan shall be submitted to the general assembly with recommendations for implementation of the reimbursement system.
4. The departments of social services and health and senior services shall be responsible for:
(1) Providing technical assistance to child care or early childhood providers for quality improvements to undergo evaluation under the quality rating system. To the extent feasible, the departments shall use existing organizations to provide the technical assistance to child care or early childhood providers;
(2) Collecting and distributing resource materials to educate the public and child care and early childhood providers about the quality rating system established under this section;
(3) Developing and distributing educational materials, including but not limited to brochures and other media as part of a comprehensive public relations campaign about the useful and informational system of assessing the quality of child care and early childhood programs in Missouri; and
(4) Posting the ratings of the quality rating system on the Internet in a format easily understood and accessible by the public by January 1, 2009.
5. The departments of social services and health and senior services shall promulgate rules to implement the provisions of this section. Any rule or portion of a rule, as that term is defined in section 536.010, RSMo, that is created under the authority delegated in this section shall become effective only if it complies with and is subject to all of the provisions of chapter 536, RSMo, and, if applicable, section 536.028, RSMo. This section and chapter 536, RSMo, are nonseverable and if any of the powers vested with the general assembly pursuant to chapter 536, RSMo, to review, to delay the effective date, or to disapprove and annul a rule are subsequently held unconstitutional, then the grant of rulemaking authority and any rule proposed or adopted after August 28, 2007, shall be invalid and void.
6. Pursuant to section 23.253, RSMo, of the Missouri sunset act:
(1) The provisions of the new program authorized under this section shall automatically sunset six years after the effective date of this section unless reauthorized by an act of the general assembly; and
(2) If such program is reauthorized, the program authorized under this section shall automatically sunset six years after the effective date of the reauthorization of this section; and
(3) This section shall terminate on September first of the calendar year immediately following the calendar year in which the program authorized under this section is sunset.
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