Child Care Consulting - Eye on Gov't

2009 Legislative Session letter to Senator Kohl-Welles regarding Senate Bill 5572, the SEIU bill:

Dear Senator Kohl-Welles,

During my testimony yesterday you indicated that I wasn't addressing the bill. I apologize for being inarticulate and not well spoken. To make amends and provide clarity as well as identify other pertinent pieces of information I submit this as further testimony on Senate Bill 5572:

I copied below in italics relative portions of the bill for which I provide testimony based on being an expert in child care licensing and having been a child care licensor for 13 years.

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...."

My testimony was and is that there is no data to support these words in the bill.

The 10 hour requirement of annual training was taken out of the family home WAC in 2004. SEIU while sitting on the WAC revision committee for the last two years did not request an emergency WAC be adopted to return that training requirement to WAC. I calculated a possible loss of 16,000 hours of training in the last four years.

The SEIU contract called for DEL to provide training on licensing WACs for all the SEIU members covered under the contract during the period of the agreement (which ends June 30, 2009). That hasn't been done and will not be done. I called a DEL manager yesterday; and DEL doesn't even have a list of which providers are covered by the contract to comply with that agreement. I calculated a possible loss of another 8,000 hours of training. Total the two and you get a possible loss of 24,000 hours of training.

SEIU requested to meet with Washington Parents for Safe Child Care. That meeting happened February 4, 2009 at SEIU offices. I participated in that meeting. Kurstyn and Karen Hart were polite and courteous. They are not experts in child care.

SEIU claims they provided training for 700 out of 10,000 providers. 300 of those were "in-home" meaning for example, a grandmother, who is taking care of her grandchildren. Those 300 got paid $600.00 for taking 10 hours of training. They could not tell us who gave the trainings provided, although, from Nancy Gerber's testimony she is giving some of the trainings. There is no training link on SEIU's website.

To summarize SEIU claims to have trained 700 out of 10,000. With the loss of the annual 10 hour training requirement, as well as, DEL and SEIU not putting together the training on the Licensing WACS 4000 out of 10,000 providers could have received training; and they did not.

DEL doesn't know which providers are SEIU to even pull together the licensing WAC training. Another DEL manager thought the 10 hour annual requirement still existed. After I walked her through it she said, "Well, I guess we'd better get it put back in."

I calculate that in the last four years 24,000 hours of possible trainings were lost; yet the drumbeat continues that education and training equal quality.

The SEIU website when it did announce the meeting dates for the Negotiated Rule Making Team (it is no longer there) advised that those attending could only be the selected SEIU rule making members. SEIU did not announce to their rank and file this was a public meeting and by law all could attend and speak.

I see today on their website that SEIU no longer makes the statement that they have 10,000 family child care providers. In one document dated November 2008 they report having 2,145 members.

I see further information that SEIU has violated their contract with the state. The contract reads "Issues involving licensing of providers (including but not limited to denial, compliance agreement, suspension and revocation) are not subject to the grievance process."

I see since I called them out after the last legislative session whereby they were calling for SEIU members to take concerted action against representatives and senators who weren't being subserviant (my word) to SEIU; that that statement was taken off the website.

More and more is coming out about SEIU nationally that behooves all citizens to review and research. Start "googling" and the information is there to be read.

Although, SEIU gave millions to Barack Obama, I believe, President Obama will not consider himself bought by SEIU. I believe the members of the Washington State Senate, also, will not consider themselves bought by SEIU; and will vote no on this bill.

Washington Parents for Safe Child Care's bill written by Senator Kohls-Welles' staff regarding pre-service training in licensed child care is being dropped today. That bill drafted with the assistance of a number of experts in child care area has great potential to addressing the training and quality issues; as well as safety issues.

The $1 million plus taxpayer money just to set up the needle to be inserted in the taxpayers' arms to pump money directly into the SEIU's money bag is too much ever and especially in this economic crisis, please vote no either in committee or let the bill die in the full Senate.

Thank you for your time and consideration in reading my testimony.

Margo Logan
Child Care Consulting in Washington State

BREAKING NEWS ON THE DEATH OF 2 YEAR OLD GABRIEL TOBIN AND THE IMPORTANCE OF JURIES

As a former child care licensor, now an activist and a consultant for parents and the public I testified at this trial.

I thank the citizens who sat on this jury who were the reasonable judges to hear this case.

The failures in licensing that led to Gabriel Tobin's death started from the beginning in 2001.

The Attorney General's Office in my opinion is a big big failure in this case. Myself, licensors and the managers were taught again and again over the years how to license properly.

Now the Attorney General's Office in opposition to the training they gave me and others brought this to court to support the poor and improper licensing of this day care home.

I made a public disclosure request to find out how much taxpayer money they put into defending these state bureaucrats.

Christine Gregoire was Attorney General and under her watch other children died. The Attorney General's Office in my opinion has been used as a public defender lawyer to suppport DSHS management personnel from being held accountable for their failures.

The Attorney General's Office is required to serve the citizens of the state of Washington not entrenched bureaucratic managers.

Check out my blog. My blog is intended to give parents and citizens the information that their state Government hides from them.

http://childcareinwashingtonstate.blogspot.com/

How do we make these bureaucrats act in the best interests of the child, the parent and the public?

One way is to be relentless and very pointed with your legislators. In fact, I know they would love to have the pressure put on them by you. It helps them fend off the pressure from the bureaucrats, unions and lobbyists.

Create your own blogs and send them to your legislators. It is very true they would really really like to hear from their constituents.

As an educated guess about five percent (5%) of licensed family home child care providers gathered at 10 locations statewide Saturday March 15, 2008 to tell the Department of Early Learning (DEL) what examples of "valid" complaints they wanted parents of Washington State to have access to on the DEL website. There are about 5000 licensed family home child day cares in the state. There were a few center folks at the forums, too.

Currently if parents see a valid complaint (for example, "overcapacity") on a provider, clicking on the hyperlink that says "overcapacity" does not give the parent details on the provider's "valid" for "overcapacity" event. It gives the parent real life examples but not the real life "overcapacity" results for that provider.

The providers attending the Vancouver forum and others statewide voted for a third option of having the real life data associated with that complaint be there for the parents to see. DEL managers in attendance stated because of technology and the budget that cannot be done at this time. There was no expert IT person in attendance to address that issue.

This author, advocate and former child care licensor disagrees. DEL has hyperlinks all over their website. It is as simple as copying text and pasting.

An example DEL passed out regarding the "overcapacity" category: "Family home provider had 12 children in the licensed downstairs area of the home and eight children hiding upstairs in the unlicensed part of the home. Family homes are licensed for a maximum of 12 children."

The providers at the forum were objecting to generic examples for fear a parent would believe the example was actually related to the complaint on them. Several providers objected to the examples themselves because "if a provider did this they wouldn't be licensed anymore, right?" So why even put that example down? Darcy Taylor, the supervisor out of the Vancouver office would not answer the question.

The reason Ms Taylor would not answer the question is because Ms Taylor herself has not shut down licensed child care facilities that were required to have been shut down under the RCW and WAC requirements. The above (bolded) example was one of those cases. How do I know? I was the licensor of that home. For clarification there were thirteen (13) children downstairs and two of the eight upstairs were babies, in two separate bedrooms with the doors closed. The upstairs did not have the required fire escape exits. There was no assistant on site when I counted the 21 children. She was allowed to keep her license and I was removed as her licensor for recommending revocation action be taken.

Licensed child care providers are rightly concerned about the perception parents in the state of Washington will have about the state of licensed care. Over the years as a licensor I had quality providers as well as Child Care Resource and Referral staff bring up their concerns about some very poor quality providers continuing to hold a license. Why? They wanted to know. Why? That answer must come now from the managers of DEL. Why?

In my thirteen years as a child care licensor the agency's name changed five (5) times. Five times in thirteen years. We always had the same desk, the same phones, the same buildings, the same chairs, the same practices and the same managers (except the person at the top would change). The public was led to believe that reform had happened. Until the next round of child tragedies or deaths.

Eight month old Jesse Hunt, Six month old Nathan Slater, eighteen month old Charlotte Wetzel, two year old Hailee Rhoads, eighteen month old Jaclyn Frank, eleven week old Jenna Knudtson, children (among others) we must not forget.

I have known many fine family home child care providers who lovingly paid attention to the children. They don't speak up for fear of retributions and attacks that may be (and have been) made on them by the vocal few.

Must parents be put in the position of having to play Russian roulette with the lives of their children when they make decisions about using family home child care?

Amy Blondin, Communications Manager for DEL at the Saturday meeting did speak up for the parent voice; and spoke up for giving parents accurate information.

This small percentage of the total number of providers statewide proceeded to edit out the most concerning examples to make them bland and generic.

For example, "Failure to notify parents of child's injury" got changed to "Failure to complete incident report" which is very different than a provider telling a parent, "Hey, your child got hurt today." "Hailee Rhoads" is an example of what happened to that child when the provider "failed to notify parents of child's injury". Click on link:

The creatively called child care center collective bargaining bill did not pass.

This is a thank you moment to the Senators in Washington State. This is not a rah, rah, rah we won moment. This is a moment of appreciation to all the senators who continued to be open, thoughtful and measurably considered in weighing the information that came their way. As always this author appreciates Senator Hargrove's standing in the world and his sense of humor. Senator Kohl-Welles with the amount of pressure coming her way remained gracious and open to receiving information. Senator Holmquist brought strength, vitality and directness to this issue. Senator Eide was also straight forward, flexible and pragmatic in receiving information.

I thank Stu Jacobson of Washington Parents for Safe Child Care for asking me to do the research on this bill and provide that information to the senators. This similar bill in 2006 simply had not been on my radar. As I read the details of the bill, wow, what a surprise.

In my opinion this was a defining moment in Washington state history. There will be many more. Though tremendous pressure was put on the senators, in my opinion, the senators were open to information, research and documentation to help them make the decision that they did.

The senators are to be commended and respected. Though many citizens and parents who send their children to licensed child care were too busy to have the time and energy to get into the complexities of this issue; we who could step up to the plate and be researcher and voice for them were gratified to do so.

Our Native Elders tell us the decisions we make today effect seven generations of children going forward.

We gathered, we spoke, we pow-wowed and those holding elected office listened in a measurably significant way. We thank the senators.

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Does collective bargaining bill benefit union over kids and child care providers?

Senate bill 6522 died on the floor last Tuesday. However, the House companion bill is still alive and is set to have a public hearing on Monday, February 25, 2008 in the Senate Labor and Commerce committee. The current bill adds child care centers to the most recent RCW 41.56 which covers licensed family home and other “exempt in-home” providers.

Information found on the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) website touts SEIU having 10,000 child care provider members. Another statistic on the website states that 92% of the providers voted to join SEIU.

In doing research for Washington Parents for Safe Child Care and finding these stats; 92% seemed incredibly high. Did SEIU mean 92% out of 10,000 members?

A seven day journey commenced to get stats from a number of agencies and organizations. SEIU representatives Gretchen Donart, Communications Organizer and Early Learning Director, Karen Hart; Department of Early Learning manager Larry Horne and Southwest Service Manager, Josh Verville (who covers Clark County); Clark County Child Care Association, President Judith Peters and Treasurer, Melba Halgren and the American Arbitration Association Vice President for elections Jeffrey Zaino were not forthcoming and provided no stats .

What might these agencies not want the public, parents and other child care providers to know?

The Public Employment Relations Commissions (PERC) when called was immediately forthcoming with the statistics. Out of 10,000 members claimed by SEIU only 2236 (that’s the 92% number) voted for the SEIU. Only 22% of about 10,000 members (PERC had the total at 9842). How many providers voted for the 2007 SEIU contract? SEIU touts 99%. 99% of how many who voted?

An additional confusion: will all child care providers (some 5000 licensed providers) be required to pay, however it may be described in the small fine cramped print on the SEIU membership application cards? It describes three types of payees: dues, fair share fee payer and objector fee. No category was found that said a provider does not have to pay. Payment can be more than $50.00 a month.

No information was found that any meetings of “exempt in-home providers” ever occurred. This represents approximately another 5000 claimed by SEIU as members. How many of that group voted?

As reported by the Washington Policy Center (WPC): “SEIU Local 925 represents more than 46,000 public sector employees, including service employees at public schools and University of Washington. For most of these workers, membership in Local 925 is a mandatory condition of their employment, and failure to pay union dues in full and on time is cause for dismissal.”

The collective bargaining bill “won” by the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) had that union threatening 800 state employees with being fired for not signing up to have money deducted from their paychecks. How will SEIU handle the independent small business child care providers who do not want to be in SEIU?

The current bill states as fact that the quality of family home care improved as a result of the collective bargaining bill passed in 2006. As reported by the WPC: “To the contrary, only eight FCH providers achieved National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) accreditation in 2007. This is an increase of only one over the seven providers accredited in 2006, out of a field of 5,387 FCH providers.” The Department of Early Learning has released no reports showing an improvement in quality in licensed family home child care as a result of the SEIU contract.

Has Pandora’s box been opened? The bill says it’s an emergency. What’s the rush?
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The new year brought a return of the Department of Early Learning fulfilling public disclosure requests in a legal and prompt fashion. Out of 774 pages no redactions were made. This is such a change from previous years of massive redactions, massive delays and massive failures to produce records under the Public Disclosure law RCW 42.56. The requests were processed by managers at headquarters including Larry Horne, the new assistant director of the Quality Division and Amy Blondin, Communications manager. This update is to give due recognition and appreciation; and best wishes to the DEL managers that this kind of role modeling filters down to the Region and local office levels.

Check out the Coalition for Open Government website, especially their 2008 legislative agenda:

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SW Service Manager Josh Verville spoke with me today. Mr. Verville had not viewed this website himself but an unnamed individual contacted him with their position being that the law calls for a response within five business days; therefore, my reporting of a delay of seven days was not accurate or fair to DEL.

Darcy Taylor hanging up on a citizen advocate was not addressed. Some of the information I sought had all ready been released to channel 8 TV news in the Portland, Oregon. The information I requested was in Darcy Taylor's memory, in my opinion. I do not believe that when I spoke Ms Taylor on November 13, 2007 that Ms Taylor did not know the names of the four providers in Clark County as she would have reviewed and signed their revocation and denial letters. It goes without saying that a state employee hanging up on a citizen/customer is wrong.

I witnessed many times over my seventeen years with DSHS in Vancouver agency personnel respond as though the "five day" period of time is merely a waiting period in which the agency doesn't have to do anything. In particular with licensing we were told to send out the letter on day five giving the requester an arbitrary date that in the beginning was about a 30 day waiting period. Almost all of the public disclosure requests that I did, I did before the five days were up. I just produced the records as requested.

Mr. Verville has been respectful in several consultation conversations we have had. I have found common ground with Mr. Verville on many of the management concepts we have discussed. Mr. Verville has come across as professional and intelligent. It causes me to reflect on the innermost workings of this state bureaucracy.

More about that later. To answer the unnamed person's viewpoint that I was unfair. I was not unfair. The information I asked for was not for the records of providers who had legal enforcement actions taken against them in October and November 2007. I merely asked for the names.

Names by the way that are required to be posted on the DEL website per RCW 43.215.525 as revocations and denials are enforcement actions. To this day that has not been done.

I stated to Mr. Verville today that I have no problem and would celebrate DEL being successful with their mission; and would be glad to help them in that mission (per RCW 43.215.005(3)(c) ).

After what looked like a new and proper implementation of the public disclosure law (RCW 42.56) by the Department of Early Learning manager Josh Verville in October 2007 (see article below) I am sorry to report that the new agency has reverted quite rapidly to its former practices of delaying public disclosure.

The agency is required to give the public information when they call over the phone for such knowable and easy to retrieve information (to be simplistic from their memories). I emailed Josh Verville on November 8, 2007 with a simple request for the names of providers in the Clark County area who received revocation or denial actions. Mr. Verville did not respond.

On November 13, 2007 I called Darcy Taylor, supervisor for DEL in Clark County. Supervisor Darcy Taylor refused to answer my question and hung up the phone on me.

I then called another advocate source and learned there had been a Channel 8 News feature in Portland, Oregon on a family home child care provider in Vancouver, Washington. On the Channel 8 news site was a link to the revocation letter.