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Committee approves DHHS child-care licensing rule after agency cites federal compliance deadline
Summary
The Administrative Rules Committee approved Department of Health and Human Services Child Care Licensing Rule 25-132 after the agency said it must implement changes by Sept. 30 to meet federal Office of Child Care requirements and allow four weeks for database updates.
The Administrative Rules Committee approved Department of Health and Human Services Child Care Licensing Rule 25-132 after agency officials told the committee the state is out of compliance with federal Office of Child Care requirements and needs the rule in place by Sept. 30, 2025.
The rule had been removed from the consent calendar so members could review it. Melissa Clement, chief of the Child Care Licensing Unit, said the department had worked with the child-care community for more than a year on the rule, convening a childcare advisory council and holding a public hearing. “The department is out of compliance with federal requirements for the Office of Child Care, the federal DHS,” Clement told the committee, and added that necessary database changes “takes approximately 4 weeks.”
The committee heard from Allison Radmay, administrator for the Administrative Rules Unit at the Department of Health and Human Services, who described the filing as part of a broader effort to return expired rules to regular rulemaking. Radmay said some editorial fixes remain but that the department is not currently collecting the fee referenced in the rule for requests for medical records.
A committee member moved to approve the rule as presented; the motion was seconded and the committee approved the rule by voice vote. The committee record does not list a roll-call tally by member name in the transcript.
The agency said the Sept. 30 implementation date is driven by federal deadlines and by the practical need to complete, test and deploy database changes to support the new licensing provisions. The committee did not identify additional statutory barriers and accepted the agency’s timetable.
The committee previously removed the rule from the consent calendar to allow members more time to review materials and to hear the agency’s explanation for urgency. The committee’s approval reinstates the rule into effect for the agency to begin the database work described by staff.
The committee also discussed its broader effort to address expired rules and to improve the database used to track rule statuses; committee leaders said that work will continue across agencies and may take several years to complete.
