Applauding Unanimous Passage of Amendment to Prevent Federal Funding From Going to Unsafe Child Care Centers

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Labor HHS Appropriations Subcommittee for accepting the amendment I introduced with Ranking Member Bobby Scott earlier this week. My amendment would prevent the flow of Child Care Development Block Grants to any child care providers with a record of health and safety violations that have resulted in injury or death at their centers. This amendment was drafted following the tragic death of five-year old Kamden Johnson at an unlicensed daycare center in my home state of Alabama.

For those of you who have not heard his story, Kamden Johnson died this August after being left in a hot daycare van at the preschool he was attending. His body was found later that day dumped at the side of the road.

Kamden's story is heartbreaking. First, because a young life was cut tragically short. Secondly, Kamden's death was preventable. Due to a state exemption for religious affiliated daycare centers, Kamden's daycare center was not subject to state oversight or inspections. As a matter of fact, the driver who was responsible for Kamden when he died had an extensive criminal record.

Despite Kamden's death, and despite the failure of Kamden's daycare center to meet commonsense safety standards, the childcare provider and other unregulated childcare centers like it can be eligible today for federal grant funding. After one of their children was discovered dead by the side of the road, this daycare center can still receive Child Care Development Block Grants.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, safe childcare centers which care for their children and are subject to regular inspection are struggling to make ends meet. Just this year, available slots at Head Start Programs were cut in four counties in my district. Each of the slots cut represent one more child who will not receive an early education, or who may be forced to attend an unlicensed daycare facility that puts their health and safety at risk.

I am a believer that Congress should act to increase funding for Head Start and that funding early learning is one of the best investments we can make in our country's future. But at a time when funding for early learning is limited, it is our responsibility to ensure that federal resources are going to the best possible daycares and preschools.

As of last year, there were 943 daycare centers in Alabama exempt from basic licensing standards. Over 30 Alabama legislators have come together to support a bipartisan bill extending licensing requirements to facilities currently exempt.

Right now, we have an opportunity to ensure that not one more federal dollar goes to a daycare center like the one that Kamden died at. We have a chance for both parties to work together and ensure that federal dollars for early learning are headed to child care centers that parents can trust meet basic health and safety standards.

My amendment is a commonsense fix following a tragedy that we cannot and should not allow to happen again. Kamden's death this August was not the first child death at an unregulated daycare center in my state, and it will not be the last so long as we continue to fund centers that violate health and safety standards. For our children, for our parents, and for kids like Kamden, I know that we can and must do better. I am proud that Congress has taken a step in addressing this major oversight in the funding of our nation's day care centers.

There is nothing more important to me than seeing our children learn and grow, and that starts with making sure our resources for early learning are going to the right place.

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