Senate committee advances bill to move daycare immunization rules into statute

Representative Healy, a member of the Idaho House from District 15, told the Senate Health and Welfare Committee that House Bill 290 would move existing Department of Health and Welfare rules about immunization requirements for licensed daycare facilities into statute and prevent the department from issuing temporary rules on vaccines or enforcement outside the legislative session.

"By doing this, we're putting the control back into the elected officials," Representative Healy said, adding the change would stop the department from "mak[ing] temporary rules outside of the legislative session."

The bill text shown to the committee includes provisions that a child "not meeting the conditions of this section shall be excluded by the licensed daycare facility operator until the child is in compliance," and that "the department may randomly select and visit licensed daycare facilities to evaluate compliance with this section" and "shall record violations in writing and provide a copy to the licensed daycare operator." Committee members asked how those provisions have worked in practice and whether moving the rules into statute would change them.

Senator Wintrow said public rulemaking processes historically provide stakeholder input and asked whether the provisions proposed for statute had seen substantial public comment in the past. "When we do rulemaking, we have all kinds of public input," she said. Representative Healy said she did not research the historical record of public comments but recalled "little to no comment" on this specific rule.

Senator Ziderfeld raised concerns about the exclusion language, asking whether the bill—s provision that a child be excluded "until the child is in compliance" might lead to children being kept out of daycare during an outbreak. Representative Healy said the exclusion language "has always been there" in existing rules and suggested that moving the language into statute would give the Legislature an opportunity to revisit whether that provision should remain.

Committee members also queried the department—s inspection authority under the provision that inspectors "may randomly select and visit licensed daycare facilities to evaluate compliance." Representative Healy said inspectors would be looking for documentation such as signed exemption forms when families claim exemptions and that each daycare must keep whatever documentation its policy requires.

Discussion in committee reflected differing views about the policy move: some senators framed the bill as a straightforward transfer of existing rule language into code so the Legislature can exercise oversight; others warned it could produce unintended consequences and said they would vote no. "I will be voting no on this because I do believe there's going to be some unintended consequences down the road," Senator Ziderfeld said on the record.

Senator Berkey moved to send House Bill 290 to the floor with a "do pass" recommendation; Senator Harris seconded. The committee responded verbally to the voice vote. Committee members named on the record as voting nay were Senator Ziderfeld and Senator Wintrow; the motion carried and the bill was recommended to the floor.

The bill now moves to the full Senate for further consideration.