Senate committee advances bill moving daycare health rules into statute amid questions about exclusions and inspections

Representative Healy, presenting House Bill 290 to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, said the bill would move existing department rules into statute to return authority to elected officials. "By doing this, we're putting the control back into the elected officials," Representative Healy said. "By doing this and moving the rules into statute, the the department can no longer, make temporary rules outside of the legislative session. So, by in, therefore, putting everything back into our hands. So what this means is outside of session, they can no longer make temporary rules on vaccines, increase enforcement, etcetera."

The bill drew sustained questions from committee members about operational consequences that currently are handled under rules. Senator Wintrow noted that rulemaking typically includes public input and stakeholder comment, asking whether the provisions now being codified had previously been the subject of such input. "When we do rulemaking, we have all kinds of public input...so then we gather stakeholder,…