H.B. 379 Child Care Provider Food Preparation Amendments: transcript

Thank you. It, it's a pleasure to be in this committee for my first time. Well, welcome. Yeah, Thank you. So, as, as you've all heard, cost of living is, is the number one thing we're hearing from constituents this year. Concerns about that. And, um, the cost of childcare is a big part of that. Over 70% of our young families say they need both parents working in order just to afford the basic necessities. So over the past year, I've been meeting with childcare stakeholders to see if there's a way we can reduce burdensome regulations, um, in order to, you know, bring down costs while, while still keeping our kids safe. One of the biggest cost drivers we identified was kitchens and, and food prep requirements. I found a lot of inconsistency about what was required. It, it really varied depending on where you were, and sometimes even depending on what inspector you happen to get. Um, and then, and childcare facilities in, in most cases were being treated as full scale commercial restaurant establishments. That, that, that's how they were being in inspected. And so this bill exempts licensed childcare providers from food service establishment requirements. It then authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to make rules for licensed care for licensed childcare providers for food safety and sanitation. It requires DHHS to collaborate with our childcare providers when making the rules. And then it also puts some parameters around how the rules should be created and what some things that cannot be required. So that is the bill. I'm open to any questions.

Right. I am not sure what the requirements are on public school kitchens.

Yeah. Um, and perhaps somebody else who might speak to this bill might know. Yeah. And I think in, in our discussions, you know, treating them as a full scale restaurant, restaurants are cooking food like all day, every day. You know, like the fridge is opened constantly. Whereas in the childcare, their kitchen and then lunch, I mean, they have breakfast and then they have lunch, and they, you know, they're not opening the fridge constantly to custom order meals all day long. And yet they were being required to have the commercial grade, um, you know, refrigerators. So that's, you know, kind of the difference between how they were being treated and what the reality is in our childcare centers.

Good morning. My name is Audrey Wood, and I am here on behalf of the Utah Private Childcare Association. We would like to thank Representative Miller for bringing forth this legislation. We have worked with her and various stakeholders on this issue for many, many months. The Department of Health and Human Services, the local health department, the Office of Childcare Licensing and Childcare Providers to come up with the language for this bill. We are in support of it. It will, um, help reduce barriers. It will help providers be able to offer, um, the care for the children that we so desperately need right now. So, thank you.

So I am not, um, familiar with the food handling in public schools. I do know that this is specific though for, um, childcare kitchens. Um, Representative Miller had indicated that, um, childcare kitchens are sometimes treated the same as restaurant kitchens that are very busy. And so I'm not familiar with that, but I, I do know that, you know, this is consistent with what we need.

Well, thank you Madam Chair and members of the committee. I appreciate you giving me this opportunity. My name is Jody Zaki. I have been a childcare provider for over 20 years, and I'm also the state board of, um, licensing chair for, for our state board of license, uh, childcare Licensing Committee. Uh, I appreciate Representative Miller for bringing this to the attention and bringing this bill forward. We have worked with state officials, the state health department. Um, I can, I can answer that question for you, um, uh, a little bit. Um, we do these, this, uh, bill will actually put us in line with allowing us to have non-commercial equipment. So for instance, non-commercial, uh, fridges, non-commercial stoves, those kinds of things. It's going to lower the barrier for childcare providers that do serve smaller number of, of children working with the, the local and state health departments in conjunction with them. And, and understanding what it takes to, to make sure that we do it in a safe manner and, and serving children in a safe manner. Um, in a childcare position, you typically will have one, maybe two cooks that are opening and closing, which again, state officials, we, as we went through and looked at, that it's very different than, than a, a serving lunch in a, in a commercial setting, such as a school. And so, yes, we will follow the same guidelines. We will still have those same rules as far as safety. We'll still have food handlers, permits, those kinds of things. Uh, what really this does is allow people the opportunity to not have the, the high cost that, that it does take for the commercial equipment that you see in, in commercial establishments such as school districts, such as restaurants. So, I, I would respectfully ask you to support this bill, and thank you so much for allowing me to speak to you today.

Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair, uh, representative. This isn't, this isn't a space I would go into, so I'm so glad that you are, because you're helping to, to remove a barrier to entry in this critical field. And I see a lot of work this session on childcare, so I love that you have the guardrails are in there to work with the National Accredited Association, and that's, um, people who are, uh, qualified in this. Uh, so I, I see that in your bill, and I really like it. So I'm gonna move that we favorably recommend House Bill 3 79, second substitute to the full body of the Senate.

Yeah, I, I really appreciate the, the intent here. Uh, but I, but I, I still, you know, I think 3 79 does a little bit more than trim with red tape. It restructures food safety oversight through broad delegation and industry collaboration without really statutory guardrails. So, uh, it, it directs the Department of Craft exemptions and collaboration with certain childcare provider associations. But, but, you know, that raises some concern, I think, about regulatory capture and whether independent or smaller providers will have equal voices. So if we're gonna deregulate, it should be done transparently in statute, not primarily through negotiated rulemaking. That that may be okay. I, I mean, I do like the intent. I like, you know, I, I don't know that we necessarily need commercial grade kitchens and stuff, but it, it concerns me a little bit that the, that the child count was taken out of this, right? The number of kids that are affected. And, and so I, I'm a little bit leery about a, uh, I mean, I really do support deregulation that's smart. And, uh, but, but to freeze the safety standards, uh, in ways that really, uh, moves away from oversight, I think is important. But I, I dunno, I, I guess I could support this because I do like the idea of the deregulation, but I, but I kind of am a little bit leery that this is turning over to a, to larger facilities rather than smaller ones. And I, I, I think we actually need more work on the smaller ones than we do on the bigger childcare things. I, I, I, I don't want to see this as a barrier for, uh, you know, home, home-based childcare facilities, but I, I dunno if you could respond to some of that.

Yeah, those are, those are all, uh, discussions that we had, um, along the way. And there's, there's already exemp exemptions in place, like if you have 15 or fewer, um, kids, and, you know, we had a lot of discussion about where did that 15 number come from, and, and, um, nobody seems to know. Um, but, so this will, will put in exemptions based on, you know, volume of food prepared. Um, and in all of our discussions, it really is, is aimed at our, in our licensed childcare facilities themselves, and not, not the in-home ones. Um, but we've, we've worked closely with the Department of Health. I mean, there was, you know, the concern was are they just going to make rules that are even more stringent than what we've got? But we've worked very closely with them and, and have their commitment to not do that. Um, but we'll be watching that process closely. Um, and if we need to come back next session, we will.

Um, thank you. Really appreciate the discussion that we've had, and, and our goal really is to reduce re regulations so that we can reduce some of the barriers to entry and in hopes of increasing our childcare supply and keeping costs down. So I appreciate your support.

I'll waive. Thank you.

Well, thank you. It is a pleasure to be here for my first time in this committee. And I also have with me Jody Zabriski, who is a, um, owner of, um, some childcare facilities. This, as you've all heard, cost of living is the number one concern that we are hearing from people. And with the rising cost of housing, childcare, and groceries, our family's budgets are being stretched thin. Um, in Utah, more than three quarters of our, our young adults are now saying that they need two incomes just to cover basic expenses. And with both parents working, finding high quality, affordable childcare is a challenge. So over the past year, I've met with, uh, many childcare providers across our state to see if there's a way we can reduce costs by reducing burdensome regulations while still keeping our children safe. I sat down with one woman who was in the process of opening a new facility, and she usually went on and on for about an hour of all the different hoops that she had to jump through and different things that were being required. Um, one of the biggest cost drivers that we identified was kitchen and food preparation requirements. And so that's what I focused on in this bill. I found a lot of inconsistency about what is being required. Um, it, it changes depending on what county you're in, what city you're in, and, and even what inspector you happen to get. And that inconsistency and overregulation adds significant upfront costs, and those costs get passed on to families. Um, I've held stakeholder meetings with childcare providers, department of licensing, uh, state and local health departments. And the result is this is this bill HB 3 79. Um, I discovered that childcare facilities were basically being treated the same as restaurants who were preparing, you know, food, uh, for the public nonstop all day long. And so this bill recognizes, um, or that exempts the childcare, uh, provider from the food service establishment. Regulat regulations, then authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to make rules, um, for those exemptions and, um, for food safety and sanitation. And then we've put parameters in the bill about how those rules be created and what may and, and may not be required. Um, so I'll turn the time over to Jody, if you wanna introduce yourself and add anything else.

Absolutely. My name is Jody Zabriski. I own five childcare facilities in Utah County. I'm also the, uh, the chair for the State Board of Licensing and serve on, um, multiple committees throughout the state. One being the Utah Private Childcare Association. Um, we we're very much in favor, and we thank Representative Miller for allowing us, or for taking this opportunity to, to work with childcare providers and, uh, local and, uh, state health department. It's been, uh, a pleasure to be able to collaborate and to come up with some, um, amazing abilities for childcare providers to be able to lower the, the costs, the burden costs that, uh, comes to opening up childcare facilities and being able to, to take care of our, our children without those extra regulations, which, um, put us in, in the same, in the same house as, as restaurants. We, we serve children, we, we do that on lower scales, and we don't have children go, or we don't have people going in and out of the kitchen. So I think this makes sense and I, I would, uh, recommend you as members to support this bill, allowing us to do what we do best is serving children. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to speak. And that concludes my presentation.

Representative Cutler, My understanding in reading the, the, I assume you've been speaking to the first substitute. Thank you. Um, second substitute. Second Substitute Am speaking to the second substitute Is you're not necessarily specifying the, the, the, the rules. You're saying that the department is gonna make these rules, so in theory, they could make them more strict, but your assumption is that, that they will be less strict than they're today.

That is the hope. Um, so we put two things in there. One that they're required to work with, um, childcare provider associations in making those rules. And then we put in some specific parameters on what those rules can be based on. And, um, you know, down, like starting lines 52, um, to the end, put some parameters around that.

Good morning, Mr. Chair. Members of the committee, uh, David Litvac, uh, one of the Deputy directors at the Department of Health and Human Services. Uh, Representative Cutler, appreciate, uh, your comment. Uh, we really are extremely appreciative of Representative Miller and the childcare association, uh, for working together with us on, uh, the current legislation. Um, we support Representative Miller's goal of striking that balance between addressing the affordability of childcare and providing health and safe, safe environments for, uh, children in the childcare environment. Uh, I am here today, uh, Representative Cutler to say that we will not be making the rule more strict. Um, we will be working with the Childcare Association to find that right balance and feel that we will absolutely be able to do that.

Uh, thank you. Um, I'm Kelly Pierce. I'm the mother of a preschooler, and I'm just speaking in support of HB 3 79 because this is, in my view, a very common sense Bill. Um, a childcare center could have the best commercial kitchen in the world, but if the food's not cooked, the kids are gonna get sick. And the reality is, everyone knows this. This is why children are not really getting foodborne illnesses in Utah childcare centers because teachers and directors, they're wonderful adults who don't need the government to tell them the proper way to make a sandwich or to keep their hands clean. I mean, they're really keeping their hands clean based on activities they're doing with the kids. And many centers themselves already have policies about proper food handling. Anyway, I think this would also free up a state inspector's time to look for actual threats to child safety and welfare. And lastly, this common sense Bill, HB 3 79 gives loving people more confidence to start their own businesses because they know the government's not gonna come down on them for giving a hungry child a snack. Thank you very much.

Yes, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to move. Substitute two, HB 3 79.

Uh, yes. I would appreciate if you adopted a substitute two. Okay.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to continue with a to, uh, move that we favorably recommend HP 3 79. Second substitute childcare provider Food Preparation amendments.

Well, thank you. If we are serious about making Utah more affordable, we have to look at policies that drive up costs and, um, having sensible regulatory reform as part of that conversation. So, would appreciate your support as we, um, go down this path of trying to right size our childcare facility, uh, food preparation. Thank

Second substitute House Bill 3 79 Child Care Provider Food Preparation Amendments by Representative Miller. This bill was heard in Economic Development and Workforce Services with the world of 7 1 2.

Thank you, colleagues. We have talked a lot about the high cost of childcare this year. Over the past year, I've met with, um, childcare stakeholders to talk about ways we could reduce the cost of childcare by reducing burdensome regulations while still keeping our kids safe. One of the biggest cost drivers is, is kitchens and food preparation. And I found a lot of inconsistency around what is required. It varied a lot across the state depending on what county you're in, what city you're in, and in many times it depends on what inspector you got as to what was required. In, in most cases, childcare kitchens were being treated as full scale commercial restaurant establishments. And so this bill, um, exempts licensed childcare providers from food service establishment regulations. It then authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to make rules for licensed childcare providers for food safety and sanitation. It requires DHHS to collaborate with childcare providers when making those rules. And it puts some parameters around how the rules should be made and some things that, uh, may not be required. And so that is the bill and I'm open to questions, Discussion to the bill.

Well, thank you. If we wanna make Utah more affordable, it's important to look at at regulations and policies that are quietly driving up costs. So by right sizing our kitchen requirements, um, it can help lower lower barriers for our childcare facilities and increase supply, which will ultimately help our working families. Thank you.

Senator Balderree. Thank you Mr. President. We've talked a lot this year about the high cost of childcare and the ability to find high quality childcare. This bill aims to reduce costs by reducing burdensome regulations while still keeping our children safe. One of the biggest cost drivers is kitchen and food preparation requirements. There's a lot of inconsistency and overregulation, which adds significant upfront cost. Childcare facilities were being treated the same as full scale restaurants preparing and serving food all day. This bill exempts licensed childcare providers from food service establishment regulations. It authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to make rules for licensed childcare providers for food safety and sanitation requires DHHS to collaborate with childcare providers when making the rules, puts parameters around how the rules should be created and what may not be required. Only applies to center-based childcare, not residential. By right sizing kitchen requirements and reducing unnecessary expense, we can lower barriers to opening childcare facilities, increased supply, and ultimately help working families. And with that, I conclude my presentation. Thank you for the presentation.

I move that second substitute house bill. 3 79 shall pass.

Aye.

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