Senate Appropriations members move to strip multi‑year childcare funding from HB472, keep small mental‑health post

Senate Appropriations Committee members on May 21 discussed HB472, a bill that combines routine Office of Professional Regulation (OPR) changes with a proposal to set up licensure for early childhood educators, and asked staff to draft an amendment that would remove the bill's appropriations for future fiscal years while keeping a $170,000 general‑fund appropriation to fund an initial executive officer for regulation of mental health professions.

The item matters because the early‑childhood licensure portion would create five permanent OPR positions and a multi‑year funding plan that the committee said conflicts with the budget the Legislature already negotiated. Committee members said those future appropriations could create budgetary and staffing commitments beyond what the agreed appropriations package provides.

Chris Rupp, identified in the record as fiscal staff, told the committee that "HB472 is really two bills in one," describing an OPR miscellaneous package and a separate early‑childhood educator licensure section that would…