KS Gov. Kelly vetoes bill loosening child care rules Republicans said would expand access

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Wednesday vetoed a bill seeking to expand access to child care through relaxed regulations, setting up a showdown with Republican lawmakers after the Democratic governor pledged to stake her second term legacy on child care.

Kelly argued the measure, passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature, took the wrong approach and would have endangered Kansas children and providers.

“As I said in my State of the State address, my North Star as Governor is to make Kansas the best place to raise a family. Key to that is ensuring parents have access to safe, affordable, quality childcare,” Kelly said in a statement.

“This bill would reverse the progress we’ve made toward that goal, loosening safety requirements for child care centers and preventing the state from being responsive to individual communities’ needs.”

The bill, championed by Republican Sens. Chase Blasi of Wichita and Kristen O’Shea of Topeka, sought to open up child care slots in Kansas by allowing child care providers to care for more children with fewer staff members and reducing the training and education requirements for some positions.

In the House, Republican leadership promised a push to override Kelly’s veto. But lawmakers will face an uphill battle overriding the veto. The Senate only narrowly approved the bill last month with a 21-17 vote. The House passed it 77-46. Both chambers were well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override.

“One of the biggest issues facing Kansas families is a lack of child care options. Governor Kelly’s veto reinforces the failed status quo by choosing overregulation over workable solutions,” House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, said in a statement.

According to Child Care Aware of Kansas, a chapter of a national organization aimed at promoting quality child care, the state needs more than 85,000 new child care slots to meet existing demand. Child care access and affordability has been a mounting crisis in Kansas and nationwide as affordable care represents an increasing barrier to working parents.

Kansas has some of the most stringent regulations for child care in the nation because of a bill the Legislature passed in 2010 in response to the death of a 13-month-old child in a Johnson County day care.

Advocates argue these regulations should be loosened to open slots. But critics say the bill is rushed and the loosened regulations go too far, creating a dangerous situation for children and workers.

Sen. Tom Holland, a Baldwin City Democrat, said the bill was another example of “jumping the gun.”

“It really doesn’t put Kansas kids first,” Holland said. “It doesn’t put Kansas families first. It doesn’t put people who need child care first. This is just a business bottom line profit.”

Carol Flechsig, owner of Little Steps Child Care Center in Carbondale, said the bill would help alleviate difficulties in finding and keeping caregivers.

Because the center has to keep their rates low so parents can afford to enroll their children in daycare, they lose workers to daycare centers in larger areas who can afford to pay more. The ability to hire high schoolers, for example, would help maintain a consistent staff.

She said Kelly’s veto will cause adverse effects for parents seeking quality child care.

“Parents are still going to seek out unlicensed child care,” Flechsig said. “Because there are a lot of them out there, and there is such a need for care.”

Tina Klingerman, owner of Children’s Garden Daycare, an in-home child care center in Topeka, rebuked claims the bill would have dangerous consequences for children, arguing Kelly’s veto will force parents to enroll their children in dangerous, unlicensed daycare centers.

“People are going to be short daycares, and we will see more unlicensed providers,” she said. “You want to talk about kids being hurt? We will start seeing that in the papers. We will start seeing children die because of unlicensed providers.”

The bill’s rejection will not mean the end of child care conversations in Kansas. Kelly created a task force to study the issue earlier this year and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said the state needs to do more to increase access.

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