BILL NUMBER: SB 548 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 14, 2015
INTRODUCED BY Senator De León
(Coauthor: Assembly Member Atkins)
FEBRUARY 26, 2015
An act to add Article 19.5 (commencing with Section 8430) to
Chapter 2 of Part 6 of Division 1 of Title 1 to
of the Education Code, relating to child care.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 548, as amended, De León. Child care: family child care
providers: bargaining representatives.
Existing law, the California Child Day Care Facilities Act,
provides for the licensure and regulation of family day care homes by
the State Department of Social Services. Existing law, the Child
Care and Development Services Act, administered by the State
Department of Education, requires the Superintendent of Public
Instruction to administer child care and development programs that
offer a full range of services for eligible children from infancy to
13 years of age, including, among others, resource and referral
programs, alternative payment programs, and family child care home
education networks.
This bill would authorize family child care providers, as defined,
to form, join, and participate in the activities of provider
organizations, as defined, and to seek the certification of a
provider organization to act as the exclusive representative for
family child care providers on matters related to state-funded child
care programs pursuant to a petition and election process overseen by
the Public Employment Relations Board or a neutral 3rd party
designated by the board.
The bill would require the State Department of Social Services and
the State Department of Education, with the assistance of specified
state departments and agencies, and their contractors and
subcontractors, to make specified information regarding family child
care providers available to provider organizations, and would require
the provider organization requesting the information to bear the
costs of collecting the information, as provided.
The bill would establish the scope of representation of the
certified provider organization, and would require the Governor,
through the Department of Human Resources, in consultation with the
Superintendent of Public Instruction and other entities, to meet and
confer in good faith with the certified provider organization on all
matters within that scope of representation. The bill would require
the parties to jointly prepare a memorandum of understanding if
agreement is reached, which would be binding on all state departments
and agencies, and their contractors and subcontractors, that are
involved in the administration of state-funded child care programs.
The bill would authorize the parties, if, after a reasonable period
of time they fail to reach agreement, to agree to submit unresolved
issues to the California State Mediation and Conciliation Service for
mediation or binding arbitration, and would authorize either party
to declare that an impasse has been reached and request the Public
Employment Relations Board to appoint a mediator or arbitrator from
the service to perform mediation or binding arbitration.
The bill would authorize a certified provider organization to
enter into an agreement with the state that provides that the state
will require entities that make subsidy payments to providers,
including the contractors or subcontractors of state agencies and
departments, to deduct membership dues and other voluntary deductions
from those subsidy payments. The bill would prohibit provider
organizations from calling strikes. The bill would prohibit the state
and provider organizations from engaging in specified prohibited
behavior with each other and providers.
The bill would require an unspecified entity
the Governor or his or her designee to perform a study of
best practices for engaging families in their children's early care
and education in family child care settings, as provided, and would
require this entity the Governor or his or
her designee to report to the Legislature and the Department of
Finance on or before January 1, 2017, with its
his or her findings and a proposed framework of priorities
in which to invest.
The bill would require a certified provider organization and the
state to form a Joint Committee on Child Care Training, Education,
and Quality Improvement made up of specified individuals. Among other
things, the bill would require the committee to identify gaps in the
training available to family child care providers and barriers
that prevent family child care providers from gaining greater skills
and accessing postsecondary education, and issue
recommendations on an annual basis to improve the quality
of care offered by licensed and licensed-exempt family child care
providers. The bill would require the provider organization to
establish a training program to carry out the recommendations of the
committee.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) Quality, affordable child care is essential to prepare
California's children to succeed in school and in life and to allow
families to work and contribute to the state's economy with the
assurance that their children are safe, well cared for, and learning.
(b) Family child care is the child care setting of choice for many
families because of its warm homelike environment, convenience
, and affordability. The flexibility offered by many family
child care providers is particularly vital to low-wage workers who
are subject to highly unpredictable work schedules, and to the many
California workers who work nontraditional hours and need child care
on evenings, overnights, and weekends. Close to 40 percent of
licensed family child care homes offer evening, weekend, and
overnight care, compared with only 2 percent of centers.
(c) Family child care providers are small business owners who
contribute significantly to the economies of their communities and
the state. As businesses, family child care providers are engines for
economic growth, generating 100,000 direct and indirect jobs, three
billion five hundred million dollars ($3,500,000,000) in economic
output, and five hundred fifty million dollars ($550,000,000) in tax
revenues. Family child care providers also contribute to the economy
by serving as a vital job support for working families.
(d) There is a need to improve the quality of child care and to
increase stability in the industry that is charged with providing
safe and quality care for children in California. Turnover among
child care providers is estimated at more than 30 percent per year,
more than four times higher than among teachers in the public school
system. Losing a caregiver leaves working parents scrambling to find
other arrangements and disrupts the children's cognitive
and social development, putting them at a disadvantage when it is
time for them to start school.
(e) Experienced child care providers who care for children under
California's state-funded child care program are leaving the
profession because extremely low reimbursement rates and a lack of
access to employment benefits mean they cannot afford to provide for
their own families. The state's fragmented, disorganized system for
paying child care providers under the state-funded child care
program, in which more than 120 different agencies contract with the
state to pay child care providers, also contributes to this turnover.
Child care providers' pay is often late, reduced, or doesn'
t does not arrive at all, and there is a lack of
clear authority and redress when problems arise.
(f) The supply of quality child care in California is inadequate
to meet the demand. Since 2008 , the state has seen a
decline of almost 26 percent in the number of licensed family child
care homes. California lost over 11,000 licensed family child care
providers and over 61,000 slots for children in these homes. In 2012,
there was licensed child care capacity for only 25 percent of
children of working parents.
(g) In order to address one of the areas of greatest need in the
state-funded child care program, to improve developmental and
educational outcomes for children in poverty, and to build off the
goals of the Local Control Funding Formula
local control funding formula , additional slots for California'
s neediest children must be added.
(h) Family child care providers' role in the state's child care
program gives them unique insight into how quality, access, and
stability could be improved for children and families. For the last
several years, child care providers have worked together with the
State Department of Education to make improvements to the state's
requirements for timeliness of payment and communications with child
care providers and families. This progress shows the value that child
care provider voices can add. But it also highlights the need for
child care providers to have a formal role in decisionmaking on
issues that shape the child care system and the way they carry out
their profession.
(i) To promote higher quality and greater access and stability in
the child care system, it is necessary to enact legislation to grant
family child care providers the right to choose a representative to
negotiate with the state over the operation of the state-funded child
care program. Permitting family child care providers a formal voice
will allow the state to get input from providers and to maximize its
return on its investment in child care, and will allow providers to
advocate to improve the quality, access, and stability of care
available to California's children and families.
(j) The existing system for providing training to child care
providers is a patchwork. Training is provided by hundreds of
different entities and is challenging to access for large numbers of
child care providers. Family child care providers also face
particular barriers to gaining greater skills and accessing
postsecondary education, including language barriers, scheduling of c
lasses that are incompatible with the operation of their
family child care homes, and lack of access to tutoring and
mentoring. Consistent with the state's focus on the improvement
and expansion of workforce development and apprenticeships, a
training partnership between the state and a certified provider
organization will be able to draw down federal and private funding to
add capacity to existing state training resources, from general
education classes (GED) and English language learner (ELL) classes to
providing support for child care providers who seek to obtain higher
education credentials in child development. This training
partnership will help build skills, knowledge, and techniques to
provide higher quality early learning for family child care providers
as well as center or school-based care providers. Financial
incentives, such as rate add-ons for child care providers who obtain
additional training or who complete apprenticeship programs, will
encourage participation, acknowledge additional skill, and help
ensure that child care providers with greater training remain serving
at-risk children.
(k) Parent engagement is a crucial part of children's success in
early care, in school and later in life. Family child care providers'
role in the state's child care program gives them unique insight
into how quality, access, and stability could be improved for
children and families. Many parents choose home-based child care
providers due to shared values and culture, close personal
relationships, and provider flexibility with erratic work schedules.
Accordingly, pursuant to Section 8439 of the Education Code, the
______ Governor or his or her designee
shall perform a study of best practices for culturally competent
parent engagement in family child care, including in particular
engagement of parents who work nontraditional hours. The study shall
determine how to most effectively ensure that parents are involved
with their children's development and are better able to provide
learning and other developmental opportunities for their children at
home in a culturally appropriate manner. The goal of the study will
be to identify best practices that target low-income families and to
propose some options for a California parent engagement program as
well as identify possible funding sources for such work.
SEC. 2. Article 19.5 (commencing with Section 8430) is added to
Chapter 2 of Part 6 of Division 1 of Title 1 of the Education Code,
to read:
Article 19.5. Raising Child Care Quality and Accessibility Act
8430. This article shall be known, and may be cited, as the
Raising Child Care Quality and Accessibility Act.
8430.5. (a) The purpose of this article is to promote quality,
access, and stability in the child care system by increasing the
number of child care slots available to California's neediest
children; by authorizing an appropriate unit of family child care
providers to choose a provider organization to act as their exclusive
representative for purposes of the meet and confer process set forth
in this article and the administration and enforcement of any
resulting memorandum of understanding; by establishing a training
partnership between the state and that exclusive representative; and
by conducting a study of best practices for parent engagement in
home-based early care and education. It is also the purpose of this
article to promote full communication between family child care
providers and the state by permitting a provider organization
certified as the representative of family child care providers to
meet and confer with the state regarding the state's child care
system.
(b) This article does not change the family child care
providers' status as independent business owners or classify family
child care providers as public employees.
8431. As used in this article:
(a) "Certified provider organization" means a provider
organization that is, or provider organizations that jointly are,
certified by the Public Employment Relations Board as the exclusive
representative of family child care providers in an appropriate unit
after a proceeding under Section 8434.
(b) "Family child care provider" or "provider" means a child care
provider that participates in a state-funded child care program and
is either of the following:
(1) A family day care home provider, as described in Section
1596.78 of the Health and Safety Code, who is licensed pursuant to
the requirement in Section 1596.80 of the Health and Safety Code.
(2) An individual who meets both of the following criteria:
(A) Provides child care in his or her own home or in the home of
the child receiving care.
(B) Is exempt from licensing requirements pursuant to Section
1596.792 of the Health and Safety Code.
(c) "Maintenance of checkoff" means an agreement between a
provider and a provider organization that the provider's
authorization for the deduction of union dues or their equivalent can
only be withdrawn during a designated window period.
(d) "Provider organization" means an organization that has all of
the following characteristics:
(1) Includes family child care providers as members .
(2) Has as one of its main purposes the representation of family
child care providers in their relations with public or private
entities in California and the terms of their participation in
state-funded child care programs .
(3) Is not an entity that contracts with the state or a county to
administer or process payments for a state-funded child care program.
(e) "Public Employment Relations Board" or "board" means the
Public Employment Relations Board established pursuant to Section
3541 of the Government Code. The powers and duties of the board
described in Sections 3514.5, 3520.5, and 3541.3 of the Government
Code, and the respective implementing regulations, shall apply, as
appropriate, to this article to the extent those procedures are not
inconsistent with the procedures specified in this article. If a
provision of this article is the same or substantially the same as
that contained in Chapter 10 (commencing with Section 3500), Chapter
10.3 (commencing with Section 3512), or Chapter 10.7 (commencing with
Section 3540) of Division 4 of Title 1 of the Government Code, it
shall be interpreted and applied in accordance with the judicial
interpretations of the provision in those statutes.
(f) "State-funded child care program" means a program
established pursuant to this chapter and administered by
the State Department of Education, the State Department of Social
Services, or another department, agency, or political subdivision of
the state, including programs established subsequent to the passage
of this article, to subsidize early learning and care for children
, but not including the public education system .
8431.5. The state action antitrust exemption to the application
of federal and state antitrust laws is applicable to the activities
of family child care providers and their representatives authorized
under this article.
8432. Family child care providers have the right to form, join,
and participate in the activities of provider organizations of their
own choosing for the purpose of being represented in all matters
specified in this article. Family child care providers have the right
to refuse to join or participate in the activities of provider
organizations. This article does not change the rights of family
child care providers to represent themselves individually in their
relations with the state, agencies or departments of the state,
contractors of the state, parents, or others , or their rights
to speak to and petition the government with respect to all aspects
of the state's child care program or any other topic .
8432.5. Family child care providers are not public employees, and
this article does not create an employer-employee relationship
between family child care providers and the state or a public or
private nonprofit entity for any purpose, including, but not limited
to, eligibility for health or retirement benefits or vicarious
liability in tort. This article does not alter the status of a family
child care provider as a business owner, an employee of a family, or
a contractor.
8433. This article does not alter the rights of families to
select, direct, and terminate the services of family child care
providers.
8433.5. (a) Within 10 days of receipt of a request from a
provider organization, the State Department of Social Services shall
make available to that provider organization information regarding
family child care providers described in paragraph (1) of subdivision
(b) of Section 8431, including each provider's name, home address,
mailing address, telephone number, email address, and license number.
(b) Within 30 days of receipt of a request from a provider
organization, the State Department of Education, with the assistance
of the State Department of Social Services and any state department
or agency, or its contractor or subcontractor, in possession of the
relevant information, shall collect information regarding family
child care providers, including each provider's name, home address,
mailing address, telephone number, email address, unique provider
identification number, if applicable, and shall make that information
available to the provider organization. The provider organization
shall bear the reasonable costs of collecting the information
described in this subdivision to the extent that the state is not
already collecting it and is not already required by federal or state
law or regulation to collect it.
(c) Upon the request of a certified provider organization, the
State Department of Social Services and the State Department of
Education shall make available to that organization the information
specified in subdivisions (a) and (b), updated on a monthly basis.
(d) A provider organization under this article shall be considered
a day care organization for purposes of subdivisions (b) and (c) of
Section 1596.86 of the Health and Safety Code. All confidentiality
requirements applicable to recipients of information pursuant to
Section 1596.86 of the Health and Safety Code apply to provider
organizations and shall apply also to protect the personal
information of family child care providers as defined in paragraph
(2) of subdivision (b) of Section 8431. Information provided pursuant
to this section shall be used only for purposes of organizing and
representing family child care providers.
(e) Upon written request of a family child care provider, the
State Department of Education and the State Department of Social
Services shall remove the family child care provider's home address
and home telephone number from the mailing lists referenced in
subdivisions (a), (b), and (c) before to the release of the lists.
8434. (a) An The appropriate unit
of family child care providers, as described in subdivision (e), may
designate, in accordance with the provisions of this article, the
provider organization, if any, that shall be its exclusive
representative. The board shall certify a provider organization
designated by an appropriate unit of family child care providers as
the exclusive representative of those providers.
(b) Requests for elections, challenges, and competing claims,
requests for intervention, and requests for decertification shall be
filed with, received by, and acted upon by the board, provided that a
valid petition for a certification or decertification election is
resolved by a secret ballot election among family child care
providers. The board may designate a neutral third party to act on
any of the requests filed with the board pursuant to this
subdivision.
(c) The provider organization that presents a petition requesting
certification shall pay the reasonable costs of verifying the number
of family child care providers that have designated a provider
organization to act as their exclusive representative. The board, or
a neutral third party designated by the board to act on a request for
certification election, shall consider a document evidencing a
family child care provider's support for a provider organization
valid if it was signed by the family child care provider within two
years of the date it is submitted to the board.
(d) All provider organizations placed on the ballot shall share
equally the cost of an election.
(e) The only appropriate unit shall consist of all family child
care providers in the state.
(f) A certified provider organization shall represent each
provider in the represented unit fairly with respect to matters
within the scope of the certified provider organization's role as
exclusive representative of the bargaining unit, without
discrimination and without regard to whether the provider is a member
of the provider organization.
8434.5. The scope of representation shall include all of the
following:
(a) The administration of laws and regulations governing licensing
for providers.
(b) Joint labor-management committees.
(c) Contract grievance arbitration.
(d) Expanded access to professional development and training
opportunities for providers, including, but not limited to, through
the training partnership established pursuant to Section 8439.5, and
state contributions to the training partnership.
(e) Benefits for providers.
(f) Payment procedures for state-funded child care programs.
(g) Reimbursement rates, including, but not limited to, rate
add-ons for providers who complete additional training, and other
economic matters.
(h) Expanded access to and funding for food and
nutrition programs.
(i) The deduction of membership dues and other voluntary
deductions authorized by individual family child care providers,
including, but not limited to, honoring maintenance of checkoff
agreements, and allocation of the costs of implementing such a
deduction system.
(j) Expanded access to the state-funded child care program to
families in need of subsidies.
(k) Any changes to current practice other than those listed in
subdivisions (a) to (j), inclusive, that would do any of the
following:
(1) Improve recruitment and retention of qualified providers.
(2) Improve the quality of the programs.
(3) Encourage qualified providers to seek additional education and
training.
(4) Promote the health and safety of providers and the children in
their care.
8435. (a) The Governor, through the Department of Human
Resources, in consultation with the Superintendent, other state
agencies that administer programs of publicly funded child
care state-funded child care programs , and their
contractors, as needed, shall meet and confer in good faith
regarding all matters within the scope of representation with
representatives of a certified provider organization and, before
arriving at a determination of policy or course of action, shall
consider fully the presentations made by the certified provider
organization on behalf of the providers it represents.
(b) As used in this section, "meet and confer in good faith" means
that the Governor, through the Department of Human Resources, and
representatives of the certified provider organization shall have the
mutual obligation to meet and confer promptly upon request by either
party and continue for a reasonable period of time in order to
exchange freely information, opinions, and proposals. The duty to
meet and confer in good faith also requires the parties to begin
negotiations sufficiently in advance of the adoption of the state's
final budget for the ensuing fiscal year so that there is adequate
time for agreement to be reached before the adoption of the final
budget and for the resolution of an impasse.
8435.5. (a) If agreement is reached between the Governor, through
the Department of Human Resources, and the certified provider
organization, they jointly shall prepare a written memorandum of
understanding. Any portions of the memorandum of understanding
requiring appropriation by the Legislature or statutory or regulatory
revisions shall be subject to legislative approval of those
appropriations or statutory or regulatory revisions.
(b) A memorandum of understanding between the Governor, through
the Department of Human Resources, and the certified provider
organization is binding on all state departments and agencies that
are involved in the administration of the state-funded child care
program, and the relevant contractors or subcontractors of those
departments and agencies.
(c) An agreement pursuant to this section may provide for binding
arbitration of grievances concerning the interpretation, application,
or violation of the agreement.
(d) This article does not alter the requirements governing the
child care reimbursement system that are set forth in Section 8222.
8436. (a) A certified provider organization shall have the right
to enter into an agreement with the state that provides that the
state will require entities that make subsidy payments to providers,
including the contractors or subcontractors of state agencies and
departments, to deduct membership dues and other voluntary deductions
from those subsidy payments.
(b) If the deduction of membership dues or other voluntary
deductions for a provider requires action by more than one agency,
department, contractor, or subcontractor, the certified provider
organization shall establish procedures to ensure both of the
following:
(1) The total amount deducted does not exceed the total dues and
other voluntary deductions owed by that provider.
(2) The administrative procedures for deducting dues and other
voluntary deductions are reasonable.
(c) The state, its agencies and departments, and their contractors
and subcontractors shall not be liable in any action by a provider
seeking recovery of, or damage for, improper calculation or use of
dues or other voluntary deductions.
8436.5. (a) It is unlawful for the state, including its agencies,
boards, commissions, departments, public benefit corporations,
political subdivisions, contractors, subcontractors, or employees, to
do to the providers or provider organizations any of the
things made unlawful under Section 3519 of the Government Code.
(b) It shall be unlawful for a provider organization to do to the
state or to the providers any of the things made unlawful
under Section 3519.5 of the Government Code.
(c) For purposes of subdivisions (a) and (b), the references in
subdivision (e) of Section 3519 of, and subdivision (d) of Section
3519.5 of, the Government Code to "the mediation procedure set forth
in Section 3518" shall be deemed to refer to the impasse procedures
set forth in Section 8437.5.
(d) The initial determination as to whether charges of unfair
practices are justified and, if so, what remedy is necessary to
effectuate the purposes of this article shall be a matter within the
exclusive jurisdiction of the board.
8437. A provider organization shall not direct or call a strike.
8437.5. If after a reasonable period of time the parties fail to
reach agreement, the parties may agree to submit unresolved issues to
the California State Mediation and Conciliation Service established
by the Department of Industrial Relations for mediation or binding
arbitration, or either party may declare that an impasse has been
reached and request the board to appoint a mediator or an arbitrator
from the California State Mediation and Conciliation Service to
perform mediation or binding arbitration. A memorandum of
understanding reached by means of mediation or arbitration is subject
to appropriation by the Legislature and necessary statutory and
regulatory revisions.
8438. If orientations are held for providers by the state or any
department, contractor, agency, or political subdivision of the
state, a certified provider organization shall be permitted to make a
brief presentation about the organization and its activities, its
negotiations and memorandum of understanding, and membership at the
orientation.
8438.5. It is the intent of the Legislature to create ____
additional slots in alternative payment voucher programs for children
living in extreme poverty, defined as 50 percent of the federal
poverty level, pending approval through the annual budget process.
8439. (a) The ____ Governor or his or her
designee shall perform a study of best practices for engaging
families in their children's early care and education in family child
care settings, and of federal and other funding streams that could
support this work without reducing the availability and affordability
of child care in California, and shall report to the Legislature and
the Department of Finance, on or before January 1, 2017, with its
findings and a proposed framework of priorities in which to invest.
In performing the study, the ____ Governor or
his or her designee shall consult with stakeholders, including
the State Department of Social Services, First 5
California, and organizations that represent parents with young
children, particularly lowerincome lower
income and non-English-speaking families, to consider how best
to engage and support those families in a culturally competent
manner.
(b) (1) A report submitted to the Legislature pursuant to this
section shall be submitted in compliance with Section 9795 of the
Government Code.
(2)
The requirement for submitting a report pursuant to this section
shall become inoperative on January 1, 2021, pursuant to Section
10231.5 of the Government Code.
8439.5. (a) If a provider organization is certified pursuant to
Section 8434, the state and the certified provider organization shall
establish a training partnership that will consist of a Joint
Committee on Child Care Training, Education, and Quality Improvement,
made up of representatives of the certified provider organization
and designees of the Governor. The provider organization shall
establish a training program that shall carry out the recommendations
of the committee.
(b) The committee shall meet to identify gaps in the training
available to family child care providers and barriers that
prevent family child care providers from gaining greater skills and
accessing postsecondary education, and issue
recommendations on an annual basis to improve the quality
of care offered by licensed and licensed-exempt family child care
providers.
(c) The committee shall play a coordinating role in ensuring that
the training offered to providers through the training program meets
the state's needs for the child care workforce; satisfies the health,
safety, and educational standards prescribed by the state; aligns
with the state's quality rating systems; and identifies and works to
eliminate barriers to providers accessing training.
(d) The committee's recommendations may include, but are not
limited to: ways to access federal and private funding for training
to expand capacity to existing state training resources, such as
general education classes and English language learner classes; ways
to support providers who seek to obtain training or higher
education credentials in child development; ways for the training
program to work with existing training providers and educational
institutions, including, but not limited to, resource and referral
networks, community colleges, and apprenticeship programs; and ways
for the training program to make training and education available to
child care workers and other workers employed by child
care centers and schools.
(e) It is the intent of the Legislature to allocate funds in the
Budget Act of 2015, in the amount of one million dollars
($1,000,000), to carry out the initial recommendations of the
committee. It is the intent of the Legislature, that in subsequent
years, the recommendations of the committee shall be funded by
contributions agreed to for that purpose in the memorandum of
understanding between the provider organization and the Governor,
through the Department of Human Resources, as specified in Section
8435.5.