Editorial
Words taken from Service International Employees Union (SEIU 925) Washington State Senate Bill 5572 cannot be confirmed by any research, study or evidence yet the bill was passed out of their respective hearing committees and Ways and Means this week; meaning it can at any moment come to a floor vote in either house.
Why is the bill even viable given the $8 billion dollar deficit? Why did it even come out of the committees?
Language and testimony from experts in child care licensing, the non-profit Washington Parents for Safe Child Care, the YMCAs and other child day care center owners show the following words in the bill are false:
”Senate Bill 5572: AN ACT Relating to improving quality, access, and stability of
child care....."
Family child care providers in the state have recently been given a similar opportunity, and the results of their efforts have improved standards and quality for that segment of the child care industry.....
The legislature intends to address these problems by creating the possibility for a new relationship between child care center directors and workers and the state....”
The bill passed in 2006 for the family child care provider has resulted in family home child care providers not taking subsidy children to not be under SEIU. This current bill of $1.4 million dollars is merely for setting up another bureaucracy in the government. These bills make the government SEIU’s banker.
An email shared with the legislature from 2005 shows the research manager for the Washington State’s child care licensing agency writing about subsidy children and family providers: "we looked at the relationship between licensing complaints and percent of capacity filled by DSHS children........but the attached graphs were pretty striking. They show a relationship between complaints and percent of capacity filled by DSHS subsidized children for both families and centers." "Data in Washington show a correlation between facilities that have greater percentages of children receiving subsidies and the incidence of reported and confirmed licensing complaints."
Thus subsidy children are forced and will further be forced into a smaller pool of available providers if the bill passes. Children coming from difficult situations are crowded together in the fewer and fewer family homes willing to take them. This ups the risk factors.
In terms of “creating the possibility for a new relationship” the Department of Early Learning has not, is not and cannot identify which providers are in SEIU to fulfill the contract agreement to provide training to that group. Thus there is no new relationship as a result of the 2006 bill passing.
The bill states”results of their efforts have improved standards and quality”. There is no data or research to support that claim. SEIU themselves claim to only have provided some classes for 700 out of the 10,000 membership they claim.
If YMCAs, Knowledge Learning and other centers can opt out, why can’t the current centers, also, opposed to SEIU opt out?
Why has the bill passed out of committees waiting for someone to pull it to the floor for a vote? It may be as simple as money was extracted from the taxpayer to SEIU; and then some given back to the legislature to buy votes and influence. We wait to see who will not be bought.
About the author:
Margo Logan, formerly worked for state government for over 20 years, including thirteen years in child care licensing, an expert in her field she now has her own consulting firm, website and blog.
