DCFS grilled by Illinois lawmakers for enforcing nonexistent daycare policy

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services was recently caught investigating daycare centers for violating a rule that cut down the amount of time assistants could monitor children. However, the powerful Joint Committee on Administrative Rules blocked that policy from taking effect two months ago.

DCFS allowed assistants at daycare centers to watch children under two for up to three hours per day over the past few years to help address the worker shortage throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency tried to cut that time frame down to 90 minutes per day, but state lawmakers rejected that rule in July.

"Any parent who wants to send their kid to a particular daycare center has the ability to look online and see that this daycare center has been sited for a violation of a rule that has been suspended by this committee," said Rep. Steve Reick (R-Woodstock). 

Lawmakers told agency leaders Tuesday that this situation has caused parents to be concerned about whether or not they should send their kids to these facilities. Reick said DCFS should ensure the public knows any daycare centers that were recently cited did nothing wrong.

"We are a large agency. We have a lot of licensing reps," said Jennifer Cohen-Diehl, the acting assistant chief of policy for DCFS. "So sometimes violations are cited and then later, after meeting with a supervisor, they are overturned. That is addressed and, if it shows up on the website, it would state that it was overturned."

Although, JCAR members said it is well past time that all DCFS staff knew that they could no longer penalize childcare providers for having assistants monitoring rooms for more than 90 minutes each day. 

"Yeah, you're a big agency. You do have a lot of investigators," Reick said. "But we have mail and email and telephones and all sorts of things that can provide information to these folks that they're not writing these people up on something that is no longer, or at least at this point, is not in effect." 

A bipartisan plan that passed out of the House this spring could have changed the DCFS standards for daycare assistants. Yet, sponsors were told to hold that bill in the Senate as DCFS explained they would handle the situation through the rules process.

"An unenforceable rule being enforced is a problem," stressed Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago). "I think you can see the committee is upset about that. So, that just can't happen." 

Cohen-Diehl told JCAR members that she doesn't know when the department will file a new rule to address the staffing issue with daycare centers.

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