Missouri's rules governing safety in church-based day cares have long been criticized as too lenient by many in the child-care field.
Those regulations were weakened further Thursday, after the state Board of Health voted to delete hundreds of lines of rules for 590 registered faith-based centers in the state, saying they are not legally enforceable.
The deleted rules covered everything from education levels for caregivers to toilet training and nutrition standards. At one point, the board reluctantly deleted a provision restricting drug and alcohol abuse. Another did away with restricting animals in food preparation areas.
"I feel there's something inherently wrong with deleting the line that caregivers and other personnel shall not be under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs on the premises," said board member Joseph Forand of St. Louis before voting to strike it. "I understand your legal point. But, ouch."
State regulators said they had no choice.
During the teleconference meeting, administrators and a lawyer with the Department of Health and Senior Services told the state health board that erasing the 14-year-old rules was necessary because the department lacks the statutory authority to enforce them.
Faith-based centers, which are classified by the state as "license-exempt," are currently required to register with the state but are not legally subject to mandatory licensing, inspection by state regulators or the more stringent rules covering 4,324 licensed facilities in Missouri. Nonetheless, Missouri has had rules — not laws —on the books for years attempting to provide at least basic standards for faith-based child-care centers. Thursday's votes eliminated those rules.
The department needed to clean up the books before pressing legislators to pass laws next session that would give the state the authority to better regulate faith-based child-care settings, said Kathy Quick, section administrator for Child Care Regulation, a division of the Department of Health and Senior Services.
Quick told the board that it had already drafted legislation to be sent to Jefferson City this next session to create that authority. After the meeting, Quick said the bills, still under review by the governor's office, did not yet have sponsors. The move was met with immediate condemnation from several licensed child-care providers.
Karen Werner, executive director of the Missouri Association of Child Care Providers, said she doesn't understand why the state would erase the rules without first ensuring that legislators would replace them.
Werner said she is skeptical the Legislature would take such a step. In recent years, even influential Senate President Pro-Tem Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, has been unable to pass significant child-care legislation.
"They are using the health and safety of these children for the next six months to four years as a bargaining chip to get statutory rules into effect," Werner said.
Kerry Messer, a conservative lobbyist and president of Missouri Family Network, called Thursday's move "political gamesmanship" designed to ultimately rid the state's existing license exemption for faith-based child-care centers.
"I think the Legislature will see through this like plastic wrap," he said. "The Legislature is more conservative on this than they ever have been."
Messer and others argue that even minimal government regulation has no place in faith-based facilities and could unfairly drive the curriculum in religious schools and programs. He said most churches offer quality schools and child-care programs with rules and standards equivalent or better than those required by regulators.
Board members who voted in favor of deleting the rules did so with reservations. Some said taking the rules off of paper, even if they were moot, would do away with a needed standard. Others shared Werner's concerns.
"We're all so very aware of how slow our Legislature can respond," said Anne Peterson of Jefferson City.
Nathalie Tungesvik of Jefferson City cast the only opposing votes.
"I'm just worried about leaving it with no rules for a period of time," she said after the vote. "There might be a different way to go about it."
The state is currently reviewing and updating regulations for all of the state's child-care facilities, including licensed centers, in-home facilities and license-exempt centers. Last year, the state held statewide meetings to gain public input and developed a full draft of revisions that are now under review by the state. But the department held no such meetings for the faith-based centers before the vote Thursday.
Carol Scott, executive director of the Missouri Child Care Resource and Referral Network, said the move Thursday was "a risk" and that she hopes it fosters stronger legislation to protect children in the long run. Her group has argued that faith-based centers should be subject to the same licensing and inspection standards as any other child-care center.
"We cannot afford in this state to reduce the protections of the health and safety of these children," she said.