(The Center Square) – Legislation to update how Washington state handles childcare licensing and to provide fraud protections and accountability within the Department of Children, Youth & Families is apparently dead this session.
House Bill 2253, sponsored by Rep. Adam Bernbaum, D-Port Angeles, would make the licensing process smoother and more efficient for providers and DCYF.
Before final passage, Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, and Rep. Josh Penner, R-Orting, offered several amendments, most of which were ultimately adopted by the full House to add rules that would stop people from stealing taxpayer money meant for kids.
As reported by The Center Square, DCYF has been under growing scrutiny due to large subsidy payouts to some questionable home daycare providers.
The bill passed the House with nearly unanimous support.
But when the legislation got to the Senate, where it was given a public hearing in Human Services Committee on Monday, Committee Chair Sen. Claire Wilson, D-Federal Way, filed an amendment. According to Couture the amendment stripped out every bit of the fraud prevention measures that both parties and DCYF had agreed on in the amendments that passed the House.
Couture took to X to criticize Wilson and told The Center Square that the bill was suddenly pulled off the agenda on Wednesday, when it had been set for executive session in the Human Service Committee.
“DCYF really wanted this bill. I mean, it was pretty innocuous, but because it was about childcare licensing, we decided to take the forward step and add in fraud measures and other things,” Couture said. “So, we got like six or seven amendments into the bill, and it was pretty much unanimous out of the House.”
He said he was shocked to see those amendments stripped out of the bill.
“It was just incredible. Like, one of the amendments was simply saying that if you got caught doing fraud as a daycare provider, that you couldn’t have a license to be a daycare provider anymore. She wanted to strip that out,” Couture said. “That’s completely nuts and insane, and it just draws more questions about why is there so much fight back from the Democrats on anti-fraud measures.”
The Center Square reached out to Wilson requesting an interview to find out why she killed the bill and received a short response via email.
“Sen. Wilson is busy right now … but I can let you know this bill is no longer in play for this year,” media contact Bridget Doyle Williams wrote.
Follow-up requests for additional information did not elicit a response.
“So, now we don’t get any kind of technical fixes to childcare licensing, but we also don’t get any reasonable anti-fraud measures, so that’s kind of sad,” Couture said. “It seems like if you want to tackle waste, fraud and abuse in the Department of Children, Youth &Families, that it doesn’t get a hearing.”
Penner also expressed frustration in a Friday interview with The Center Square.
“One of the big amendments that we dropped in there is anti-fraud protection. Electronic logging, so that way there was an audit trail because the auditor said that they couldn’t verify any of the information over the last four or five years,” he said. “And if somebody is guilty of fraud, they shouldn’t be allowed to continue to defraud the agency. But she stripped that out. She pulled out every single reasonable protection against fraud, waste and abuse.”
Penner said he was questioning if DCYF staff members who helped them craft the amendments had actually negotiated in good faith.
“What happened? Was DCYF negotiating with us and then working on her [Sen. Wilson] to pull it out?” he asked. “I don’t know the answer to that. But ultimately, whatever happened just caused the bill not to move forward in the Senate, and that’s sad.”
