House approves trust fund to accept private donations for child-care training

Representative Kim R. Birmingham sponsored House Bill 20 to establish an expendable trust fund so the Office of Child Care could accept and use private donations to support training and quality improvement for child-care providers. Birmingham framed the issue with workforce statistics — noting national and Utah labor-force participation and saying "100,000 children every day under age 6 in this state need some kind of child care outside of the home." He said the office’s mission is to improve quality and that the trust fund would allow private-sector contributions to be designated for training and other improvements without using a state appropriation.

In question-and-answer exchanges, members sought to confirm that the Office of Child Care would not use the fund to pay for direct child care and that the advisory committee, appointed by the governor, would direct expenditures. Birmingham identified the office’s current budget as $94,000, a reduction of $10,000 from the prior year, and said federal grant funds and private donations (sponsor cited examples like AT&T) supplement the office’s resources. He estimated private-sector contributions might often be in the $15,000–$20,000 range to support events or training.

Representative Olsen moved an amendment to remove the word "legislature" from the statutory list of possible fund sources (placing a period after "donors" and adding conjunctions to clarify private sources); the amendment was seconded and adopted after brief debate. Voting on the amended bill was opened and closed; the transcript records the bill as passing with a reported 71 affirmative and 0 negative votes, and the bill was referred to the Senate.

Next steps: HB20, as amended, will be forwarded to the Senate for consideration.