KDHE says Stormont Vail child care waiver granted — but not because of Gov. Laura Kelly intervention
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The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said their decision to grant a waiver for a child care facility at a Topeka hospital was not affected by outreach from Gov. Laura Kelly's office after the governor told reporters last week that she told the agency to "get this done."
The waiver request and subsequent intervention by Kelly's administration is not unusual, her office said, though it comes at a time when Republican lawmakers and her office are set to face off over the best way to ease child care barriers for Kansas families.
More: 'We can't wait' — Kansas lawmakers narrowly advance overhaul of child care regulations
Speaking with reporters Friday following the maiden meeting of the governor's task force on childcare, Kelly pointed to struggles by Stormont Vail to navigate regulations in attracting personnel to staff their child care facilities on the hospital campus.
That included the hospital's effort to obtain a waiver from a requirement that directors of large child care facilities have certain education and professional requirements, standards Stormont Vail said were overly onerous and excluded otherwise qualified applicants.
Those issues have led the hospital and others to support a legislative effort to roll back a number of child care regulations in a bid to increase the number of available slots at facilities across the state.
Kelly made call to KDHE on Stormont Vail's behalf and said 'get this done'
But Kelly said she felt it was a bad idea to solidify regulations in state statute. In doing so, she said she reached out to KDHE regarding Stormont Vail's waiver request.
"Stormont Vail wanted to hire a woman to be director of their early childhood center as a center of over 100 kids in it," Kelly said. "Because she had not spent one year working in a center that large, she technically wasn't qualified even though she had degrees in education. So, I was able to make a call over to KDHE and say, 'Get this done.' And they were able to offer a waiver so that she was qualified to take that job."
In a statement, Kelly spokesperson Brianna Johnson said the move was part of an effort by Kelly's administration to tackle child care challenges.
"The Kelly administration — from the Governor’s Office to the Children’s Cabinet to KDHE to DCF — is doing everything we can to help childcare providers across the state navigate the regulatory system, including by personal intervention when necessary, to drive down the cost of and expand child care," Johnson said.
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Stormont Vail spokesperson MollyPatt Eyestone said in an email that the hospital met with Kelly, as well as a number of legislators, about child care struggles and sent Kelly a letter on the topic on March 9.
"These discussions were about our efforts to improve the availability of child care to our team members and some of the challenges we have faced," Eyestone said.
The hospital learned its waiver request had been approved last week, she said, but Eyestone said they were unaware of any intervention on their behalf with KDHE. The hospital initially said they had a waiver request denied last year but they actually did not properly submit a request until March.
Kansas has stricter regulations for larger child care facilities
State regulations spell out a number of requirements that individuals running a child care facility must meet.
For the state's largest child care centers, an individual must either a degree in "child development or early childhood education" or a degree in a related field and 12 credit hours of training in early childhood education or child development.
An individual must also have one year of experience running a child care facility with more than 24 children or served for that same time period as an associate director of a facility with more than 100 children.
And the director candidate must also meet one of five possible combinations of college degree or coursework and experience teaching in a preschool or childcare setting.
As of January, KDHE approved new policies that would allow the agency to waive the degree requirement but retain the other requirements. There also is a process to certify an individual with six months of experience leading a large child care facility, which the candidate had by the time the hospital submitted a waiver request.
More: Kansas governor creates task force for cabinet-level child care office via executive order
Eyestone said that the potential director had eight years of experience in Seaman Unified School District, had previously worked at Stormont's child care facility and held a bachelor's degree in education.
Matt Lara, a spokesperson for KDHE, said a provider "must demonstrate and provide an explanation of why the exception is necessary, including how is the request in the best interest of the child(ren) or youth and the families the program is serving."
In 2022, two providers requested a waiver from this particular regulation and both were granted.
The decision to approve Stormont Vail's waiver request, Lara said, was not influenced by any outreach from Kelly or a member of her staff.
"The decision to grant the waiver was based on the experience that the current program director has and what is in the best interest for the children in the facility," Lara said in an email.
Kansas HB 2344 could relax state's child care requirements and restrictions
Stormont Vail has advocated for what is now House Bill 2344, the legislation that would overhaul the state's regulatory scheme for child care. This would alter the ratios between children and staff in a facility and reduce some training and experience requirements for providers, among other tweaks.
"The shortage of qualified candidates is hindering the ability to fill these roles with qualified individuals and expand our center to the maximum potential capacity," Darlene Stone, senior vice president and chief experience officer, told the Senate Commerce Committee last month.
Kelly said the regulatory changes in the bill were secondary to putting those changes into statute and granting KDHE less flexibility.
"Taking regulations and putting them in statute, that's the biggest problem with that bill," Kelly said. "Once you put it into statute, then you tie the hands of the childcare licensing bureau, they can no longer offer exemptions."
Negotiations between lawmakers are underway on the final form of HB 2344 are ongoing, with Republican legislators arguing the bill is the most efficient way to begin to reduce long waiting lists for childcare services. Critics say the bill will make children less safe.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: KDHE says Stormont Vail child care waiver not because of Laura Kelly
