Minnesota legislators are working to restrict public access to enforcement reports of family day care providers accused of violating standards, a move they hope will slow the dramatic exit of child care operators from the state.
Day care operators are pressuring legislators to make the changes, saying their reputations can be tarnished by violation reports that remain available online, even after proving to be erroneous or dismissed on appeal.
"If we're found to be innocent, it shouldn't permanently haunt us," said Jennifer Parrish, a day care provider in Rochester.
Measures advancing through the House and Senate would carve a special exemption in Minnesota's public records law for the nearly 9,000 family child cares, by keeping licensing actions nonpublic until the appeal process is complete.
That process can take months. For those actions that are overturned, the public will never have access to records about the allegations.
The effort is causing a clash between day care operators trying to protect their businesses and regulators who want parents to have the most complete information about child care providers at their fingertips. DFL Gov. Mark Dayton opposes the measure, "which would make public data on child care providers less accessible to the people of Minnesota," spokesman Sam Fettig said.
State officials have been wrestling with how best to regulate child care centers for years, particularly smaller providers who operate out of their homes. In 2012, the Star Tribune used the records to explain a sharp rise in the number of deaths at home-based day cares. The resulting stories prompted legislative action to strengthen oversight. Those deaths have since plummeted.
The measures to restrict public access to child care data are opposed by the Department of Human Services, which along with counties enforce standards at family day cares.