After hours of debate, much of it emotional and personal, the Connecticut Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would require municipal camps to be licensed by the state, despite pushback from some lawmakers who said the legislation could unintentionally shutter low-cost child care options that many parents rely on in the summer.

Sen. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton, was among the vocal critics during Tuesday’s debate of Senate Bill 6, an omnibus bill that also focuses on reporting on disconnected youth and healthy meal programs for children. He repeatedly urged his fellow senators to revisit the camp licensure requirement.

“I think we run the risk of harming these children who we attempt to affect positively,” Perillo said. “I think this may be an unintended consequence, whereby our municipal day camps are forced to close because of the costs related to implementation of the bill that is here before us.”

The bill now heads to the House.

Currently, Connecticut summer camps operate with no oversight from the state. Though many say their internal standards are high, there are no state requirements to comply with basic safety measures like background checks, staff to camper ratios or water testing.

Municipal camps have voiced opposition to the bill, many saying that the fine print in the bill, like a concern that Perillo raised about the ratio of people to bathrooms, would require costly infrastructure updates.

Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, co-chair of the Committee on Children, has argued that concerns about cost increases are overblown, and that leaving a loophole open that allows camps to operate without oversight has a disproportionate impact on low-income families that can’t afford private camps.

“We know that for many, many low income families, summer camps, municipal camps, are in essence child care,” Maher said. “It is an equity issue that we must oversee municipal camps to make sure they are safe and licensed at the same level as private camps are.”

Under the bill, the new provisions would take a year to go into effect. Maher said that would give the state enough time to work out cost issues that arise.

Legislators have attempted for years to subject municipal camps to more oversight, but the issue has gotten more traction this year in light of a child sex assault case at a town-run camp in Bethany that came to public attention last year. In that case, a counselor was accused by several girls of sexual abuse at camps. But on Tuesday, Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, argued the new requirements would not have prevented a similar case because the counselor in that case had been subjected to a background check.

“All of these new provisions that have been put in this bill, they would not have made one difference in what happened in Bethany,” Somers said, as she pressed for an amendment that would have taken the licensure requirements out of the bill. That amendment failed.

Sen. Catherine Osten, D-Sprague and co-chair of the Appropriations Committee, spoke on the Senate floor about the bill, saying she had “a story to tell.” Speaking at length, Osten described the struggles her family went through after her daughter was molested by a relative’s boyfriend. Osten said that went on for about a year until her daughter said something was happening.

Osten said she spent years trying to prevent other families from going through the same thing, and while she empathized with the families in Bethany that were affected by the alleged abuse, she argued that such a bill wouldn’t stop other perpetrators from hurting kids in the future. Instead, Osten said, the bill would negatively impact families because it would cause camps to shutter, leaving children without a place to go.

“There’s nothing to take away the pain. There’s not a thing we can do to take away the pain in something like this,” Osten said. “I think it’s a great thing that you want to feel better, but I can tell you that you are not going to protect children with a piece of legislation that will not stop someone from putting hands on children. The only thing that stops people from putting hands on children is to put them in jail, to incarcerate those people, to make sure they stay there a really long time. And when they get out to follow them and make sure they get the treatment they can. And our bills today don’t address that issue.”

Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly, told her fellow lawmakers that some parts of Tuesday’s debate were frustrating.

“I think it’s actually an example of the Connecticut legislature listening to parents,” she said. She said that parents make choices about camps based on cost, while assuming that all camps meet the same safety standards. “While what happened in Bethany is not the only reason for this legislation before us, it should be the driving reason why we finally close this loophole.”