Following the 2024 arrest of a municipal youth camp worker accused of sexually abusing young girls in Bethany, state lawmakers are considering legislation that would make camp workers mandated reporters of abuse.
The legislature’s Committee on Children held a public hearing Tuesday on Senate Bill 157, which would require camp workers to report suspected child abuse. The same day, the Office of the Child Advocate issued a report on the Bethany case that recommended camp workers get background checks and that all child care workers become mandated reporters.
“Licensure would be the gold standard. It is the ideal thing, because there are a host of safety related pieces of licensure,” said Acting Child Advocate Christina Ghio. “The very basic foundation should be that there are no employees there who pose a known safety risk to children.”
Municipal camps aren’t licensed or managed by any state agency; instead they’re overseen by municipal government, which means regulations are different depending on the town.
In June 2024, a Bethany camp worker was arrested and charged with multiple felonies after allegations surfaced that he had sexually abused children at a camp run by the town’s Park and Recreation Department. The worker, Anthony Mastrangelo, also worked at the public schools and had been reported to have abused children as early as 2022.
It took over a year for the arrest warrants to be issued, during which time Mastrangelo allegedly abused another child. Ghio said her office is still investigating the delay.
Before his employment at the camp, OCA saw “no evidence to suggest that any employees received background checks,” including Mastrangelo. “The failure to obtain background checks, while egregious from the perspective of child safety, was not a violation of the law because Bethany Parks and Recreation, like all municipal child care settings and youth camps, was exempt from licensing and thus exempt from such legal requirements,” the report says.
S.B. 157 doesn’t directly require background checks, although it was one of the more-discussed issues of Tuesday’s public hearing. The bill would make camp workers mandated reporters, meaning they’d be legally required to report suspected abuse to the Department of Children and Families. The bill would also require a statewide report on municipal camps.
The OCA report also found that although DCF is required to notify some employers if their employee is being investigated for child abuse or neglect, there is a lack of clarity about which places constitute “a public or private institution or facility caring for children.” The report recommends that lawmakers clarify the term.
“Ensuring that staff are properly trained to recognize and report suspected abuse or neglect is a critical step in protecting children,” said John L. Cattelan, vice president of government relations for the Connecticut Alliance of YMCAs. Cattelan was among the bill’s supporters.
Randy Collins, an associate director of public policy and advocacy for the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, said his organization isn’t opposed to the bill language.
A bill last session would have required that municipal camps be licensed through the Office of Early Childhood, which would have offered more state oversight, including background checks. Republicans opposed the measure, saying it would be expensive for towns and make it hard for them to run the camps that many parents rely on.
The bill passed in the Senate but wasn’t called for a vote in the House.
S.B. 157 next needs a committee vote to move forward.