CHURCH-RUN, CHILD-CARE CENTERS AT ISSUE

A legislative proposal to regulate church-run day-care centers may have little impact here because some of the facilities are already licensed or are approaching state standards, operators say.

The Missouri House, on a voice vote Tuesday, gave first-round approval to a measure that would extend state licensing to church-run child-care centers.

Missouri is the only state exempting church-run centers from licensing. The bill removes that exemption and puts the state Division of Family Services in charge of licensing. The centers would have to meet regulations on health, fire, safety and staff-to-child ratios.

The First Assembly of God Church in Cape Girardeau operates Kids Corner Daycare & Infant Center at 750 Mount Auburn Road.

The center and its staff of about 20 full- and part-time workers handles on average about 120 children per weekday, ages 6 weeks through 12. School-age children attend the center in the afternoons after school.

Both Shirley Poole, the center's director, and the Rev. Gary Brothers of the First Assembly of God Church said Wednesday that the center on its own has conformed to many of the state licensing requirements.

Brothers said the center would have little difficulty meeting state requirements should the legislation become law.

"I think we have to have clear-cut standards for health and safety and all of that," said Brothers. "Everything we are doing is to pretty much parallel those requirements anyway. If the state passes that and says you have to be up to these standards, then we would certainly comply with that."

Brothers said the church-run facility has been in operation for 18 years and has "an excellent safety record."

Poole said: "We try to go by the regulations for safety and the rules for licensed day care. The day care runs smoothly the way we are doing it."

Poole said the center, for example, goes by state licensing requirements of having one caregiver for every four infants and one caregiver for every eight toddlers.

Brothers said church-run facilities are generally less expensive than licensed centers. He said government regulations in general drive up the cost of any operation.

"Anytime government becomes involved," he said, "there is more cost; there is more time and energy that has to be spent toward meeting the paperwork, report requirements, etc."

Poole said she does most of the bookkeeping herself. If it were a licensed facility, she said, the center would probably have to hire a full-time assistant just to take care of the recordkeeping.

Both Poole and Brothers said such regulatory costs would be passed on to the parents in the form of higher charges.

But Brothers said the church and the center are already committed to providing a high quality facility in which to care for children.

He said the commitment is not prompted by the prospect of government regulations. "We do it because we want to provide the best care for the children and their parents."

Brothers said the center pays attention to the wishes of the parents who use the center. He said the center plans to mail a questionnaire to parents within the next few days. The questionnaire asks them to rate the center in several categories.

Parents, he said, previously have suggested improvements such as installation of a speed bump.

The church and the center, he said, have implemented some of the suggestions.

"It comes down to common sense," he said. "A lot of our legislation would not be necessary if people had more common sense and people would utilize it."

Brothers said he doesn't believe a state licensing law is needed in the case of his church's day-care center. But he added there may be some church-run operations where such regulations are needed.

The pastor said it's wrong to assume that unlicensed, church-run facilities are substandard operations. Such centers, he said, are regulated by the consumers.

"Our regulators are our parents," he said. "If they see something they don't like, they can talk to me. They are our watchdogs, so to speak."

But Brothers said he expects that ultimately church-run facilities will have to meet state requirements.

Licensing of church-run centers would have no effect on the Trinity Lutheran Day Care Center. It's one of two church-run centers in Cape Girardeau County that have voluntarily sought and obtained state licenses.

Trinity Lutheran's center at 55 N. Pacific has been licensed since it opened in August 1980. The center is licensed to care for 60 children, ages 2 to 12.

Staff-to-child ratios control how many children a center can care for at any one age grouping.

Sally Lipke, the center's director, said she believes there are some benefits to being a licensed facility. "I think licensing provides with it additional help and guidelines from the state."

She said state licensing representatives regularly provide useful information that aids centers in providing quality child care.

Licensing also assures parents that the centers are meeting minimum state requirements regarding health and safety and that there are a sufficient number of employees to take care of the children.

"Parents want to have their kids in a licensed facility," said Lipke.

"I feel that the requirements are basically just the minimum standard," she said.

Regular inspections assure that licensed facilities are meeting state day-care requirements, including square footage per child and the number of toilets.

There are 30 homes and 18 day-care centers in Cape Girardeau County that are licensed by the state, said Ann Hall, a child-care licensing representative with the Division of Family Services office in Cape Girardeau.

"On all the licensed facilities, we make routine visits," she said Wednesday.

The facilities are licensed for a two-year period and undergo detailed reviews prior to every license renewal, Hall said.

Licensing requirements include one stipulating that centers must provide 40 toys and other learning items for every 10 children. But an amendment to the House measure would allow the state to grant exemptions to rules and regulations that do not involve health and safety.

Lipke said state licensing regulations do not infringe on the religious curriculum of church-run centers such as Trinity Lutheran.

She said the licensing requirements "in no way affect our curriculum or our religious instruction or our prayers or that kind of thing."