On February 21, Associate Policy Director Sarah Sample testified before the Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee in support of SB 770 – Applicants for Positions Involving Direct Contact With Minors – Required Information, Review Process, and Reporting – Alterations with amendments.
This bill expands the employee application and review procedures required for school systems, child care centers, and youth-serving organizations. For counties, this means extending these requirements to include recreational programs, summer camps, and recreational sports programs and teams.
Counties appreciate the interest in making sure all employees who interact with children in the local parks and recreation divisions are appropriately vetted. Current procedures already reflect that intent and are often a combination of criminal background checks, drug testing, fingerprinting, and child protective services clearances. These standards are reinforced by both county attorneys and risk managers, who help establish sensible practices in these and other operations. Further, recent statutory changes related to increased liability for county employees who supervise those who interact with children have necessitated even greater scrutiny for vetting and monitoring anyone who is intended to interact with children in a county role.
To illustrate county concerns, the circumstances for these types of hires in parks and recreation divisions are vastly different than those employed by the school systems. Education-based positions often have a longer lead time as well as a longer tenure of employment. Those employees are also interacting with children most days for extended periods of time throughout the year. In contrast, parks and recreation divisions, each year, are regularly hiring short-term, seasonal employees based on periodic programming, therefore the lead time is shorter than that of a school system, and their interaction times with children are a fraction of the time a teacher or school official would see.
SB 770’s cross-file, HB 1105, was heard on February 24 in the House Ways and Means Committee. Sarah Sample testified in support of this bill with amendments.
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