A Notice of Emergency Adoption and Proposed Rule Making, I.D. No. CFS-30-16-00001-EP, pertaining to Child Day Care Safety Enforcement and Administrative Hearing Regulations, published in the July 27, 2016 issue of the State Register contained an incorrect word in the Specific Reasons Underlying the Finding of Necessity, and the Regulatory Impact Statement under the Needs and Benefits section. Following are the corrected statements with the proper word in bold.

Specific reasons underlying the finding of necessity: The Office of Children and Family Services (Office) has determined that immediate adoption of these regulations on an emergency basis are necessary to better protect the health, safety and welfare of children in licensed and registered child day care programs throughout New York State and to better protect children from receiving care in programs that do not have the required license or registration to operate. These emergency regulations strengthen the Office’s ability to take enforcement action against child day care programs that violate applicable health and safety requirements.

Presently, the grounds for which the Office may suspend or limit a licensed or registered child day care program are extremely narrow. As a result, children may continue to receive care in licensed or registered child care settings even after the Office has found egregious health and safety violations. These emergency regulations will clarify the legal standard to suspend or limit a child day care program so that the Office can act in appropriate circumstances to protect the safety and well-being of children receiving child care services in licensed or registered programs. Adoption of these regulations on an emergency basis is needed to prevent children from to continuing to receive child care services in unsafe environments where egregious health and safety violations have been found.

These regulations will also require programs to post notices to inform parents or caregivers when a program has been suspended or limited. Adoption of these regulations on an expedited basis is needed so that parents can make informed and timely choices regarding the safety of their children. Parents and caregivers deserve to know that child day care providers authorized to provide care by the Office in fact provide the safest, most secure environment for children.

These regulations will modify, within the existing statutory cap, the maximum allowable daily fine the Office can charge a provider for violating specified regulatory requirements and allow for a graduated increase in the maximum fine that can be charged for repeat offenses. These changes are necessary on an expedited basis to provide a greater deterrent for violation of existing regulatory requirements, and to provide appropriate remedies for repeat violations.

Finally, these regulations will help to better protect children in child day care programs by authorizing the Office to notify law enforcement when a child care program is found to be operating without the required license or registration and by requiring unlicensed and unregistered programs to inform parents that the program has been shut down. Adoption of these regulations on an emergency basis is needed as unlicensed operation of child care programs has resulted in serious risk to the safety of children and additional deterrents are necessary.

In the absence of these regulations, inspections have shown that there are unsafe programs that continue to operate, parents are unaware of potentially unsafe conditions, and unsafe providers are often not dissuaded from continuing to provide inadequate and unsafe care.

3. Needs and benefits:

The proposed changes to the enforcement and hearing regulations are needed to better protect the health, safety and welfare of children in licensed and registered child day care programs throughout New York State and to better protect children from receiving care in programs that do not have the required license or registration to operate.

These regulations will clarify the legal standard to suspend or limit a child day care program so that the Office can act in appropriate circumstance to protect the safety and well-being of children when egregious violations of the applicable legal standards for health and safety occurs in a licensed or registered program. Such changes are required to prevent children from receiving child care services in unsafe environments.

These regulations will also require programs to post notices to inform parents or caregivers when a program has been suspended or limited. Parents and caregivers deserve to know that child day care providers authorized to provide care by the Office, in fact provide the safest, most secure environment for children.

These regulations will modify, within the existing statutory cap, the maximum allowable daily fine the Office can charge a provider for violating specified regulatory requirements and allow for a graduated increase in the maximum fine that can be charged for repeat offenses. Such changes are necessary to provide a greater deterrent for violation of existing regulatory requirements, and to provide appropriate remedies for repeat violations.

Finally, these regulations will help to better protect children in child day care programs by authorizing the Office to notify law enforcement when a child care program is found to be operating without the required license or registration. These regulations will also provide that if the Office requires that such programs close that such programs post a notice to inform parents and caregivers that the program has been closed for not having the required license or registration.