Children: child care; fingerprint requirement for child care licensees; expand locations to obtain. Amends sec. 5n of 1973 PA 116 (MCL 722.115n).
Senate Bill 85 amends Michigan’s child care licensing law to expand where child care licensees, staff, and certain household members can obtain fingerprints for required background checks. The bill keeps the existing screening framework in place for child care centers, group child care homes, and family child care homes, including checks of state police records, the FBI, sex offender registries, prior disciplinary databases, and criminal records from states where the person has lived in the past five years. It also continues the requirement that individuals consent in writing to the checks and provides procedures for people who have lived outside the United States, including self-certification when foreign clearances are unavailable.
The bill preserves the current eligibility review and redetermination process for individuals found ineligible, including notice of disqualifying items, a 30-day window to request reconsideration, and protection for expunged or set-aside convictions and expunged central registry cases. It also maintains the rule that an applicant may work as a child care staff member while checks are pending if supervised at all times, and it keeps the five-year update cycle for ongoing licensees and staff. The practical change highlighted by the bill title is to make fingerprinting more accessible by expanding the locations where fingerprints may be taken, rather than changing the underlying disqualification standards.
The bill’s impact on state law is limited but operationally important: it amends section 5n of Public Act 116 of 1973, which governs child care licensing and background screening, to adjust the fingerprinting process used for criminal history checks. It affects the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs or the relevant licensing department, the Department of State Police, the FBI, and child care providers and applicants who must complete background checks as a condition of licensure or employment. It also preserves the ability of the state to charge reasonable fees for checks and to pass those costs on to applicants.
There is little evidence of controversy in the available record. No committee transcripts or recorded votes were provided, and the bill context does not show formal opposition or support statements. Based on the text and caption, the measure appears to be a technical or administrative update aimed at reducing barriers to compliance with fingerprint-based background checks while keeping child safety protections intact. Any likely concerns would center on administrative burden, cost, and access to fingerprinting services, but those issues are not documented in the supplied materials.
SB0085 amends section 5n of 1973 PA 116, the child care licensing statute, to modify the fingerprinting and criminal-history-check process for child care center licensees, group child care home licensees, family child care home licensees, child care staff members, and certain adult household members. The bill preserves the existing background-screening requirements and eligibility rules, including checks against state and federal criminal records, sex offender registries, and prior child care disciplinary databases, while making the fingerprinting process more accessible by expanding where fingerprints may be obtained. It also continues the Department’s authority to determine eligibility, issue notices, and require periodic updates every five years.
The available materials suggest generally neutral to favorable sentiment. The bill appears to be a practical administrative change rather than a policy overhaul, and it keeps the child-safety screening framework intact while easing compliance with fingerprinting requirements. No committee testimony, recorded votes, or formal opposition were provided, so there is no documented partisan or stakeholder divide in the record supplied.
No specific points of contention are documented in the provided transcripts or voting history, because none were supplied. Based on the bill text, the most plausible areas of concern would be the cost and logistics of fingerprint-based background checks, the burden on child care providers and applicants, and the balance between access to child care staffing and child safety screening. However, the record here does not identify any named opponents, supporters, or disputed provisions.