The House of Representatives passed a bill on Monday that will take a modest step toward providing safety and transparency to the camps operated by cities and towns across Connecticut.
Senate Bill 157, which now heads to the governor’s desk for a signature, received the unanimous approval of lawmakers in the House who voted — two members were absent — after passing the Senate two weeks ago.
The vote was a departure from previous attempts at regulating municipal camps, in part due to the omission of a licensure provision. Municipalities have vigorously opposed past attempts to close a loophole that allows camps run by cities and towns to operate without the licensure requirements of private camps. While individual municipalities might have a high standard for how camps are run, they are not required by law to follow basic practices like conducting background checks on counselors or checking water quality.
The new bill would create mandated reporter requirements for those camps and require a report by the Office of Early Childhood and other stakeholders on the landscape of such programs in Connecticut.
The passage of S.B. 157, comes two years after a sex abuse scandal in Bethany, where an employee of a municipal camp and after school program was arrested and accused of abusing several children. In the aftermath, questions emerged about the way the programs where he worked had been managed.
The debates in recent years over regulation have also revealed that Connecticut officials have no data on the camps themselves — how many exist, how many children are enrolled, where they are located or whether criminal background checks are conducted. The bill passed on Monday will require the OEC to write a report that gathers that data, with the help of state organizations representing parks and recreation departments, municipal leaders and advocates for the interests of small towns.
Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, who co-chairs the Committee on Children, said the bill was one example of her committee’s bipartisan approach to crafting the legislation this session, ensuring that bills were well understood and supported from the beginning. The mandated reporter requirement, she said, addresses concerns raised in the Bethany case. The report on camps, meanwhile, will allow lawmakers to understand how the camps are run and what support the state can provide.
“What do they need to thrive?” Maher said. “We know they are important to working families but now that can be quantified.”
Rep. Mary Welander, D-Orange, presented the bill in the House and said that the Committee on Children had found during testimony on the measure that there were significant variations between camps. The report, she said, is intended to compile “an easily accessible best practices that can be shared with municipal camps parks and rec programs, so if they are not doing something currently, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. They can use this as a resource.”
The bill also clarifies that the same mandated reporter requirement for youth camp staff — that any staff age 21 or older must be trained as mandated reporters — applies to staff at municipal camps, not just camps operated by private entities. Such training is free and can be completed online.
Representatives of municipal parks and recreation programs across the state have vigorously opposed requiring licensure, which they say would require expensive upgrades to staffing and facilities that threaten to make the cost of operating such camps too high.
This year, without that provision, the bill passed out of the Committee on Children managed to accrue support from elected officials as well as organizations like the YMCA, as well as tacit acceptance from the many town parks and recreation departments that declined to submit public testimony.
The Office of the Child Advocate released a report in February that recommended making improvements to municipal camp safety following that office’s investigation into the Bethany case. The report specifically recommended changing mandated reporter requirements at such camps.
In testimony about S.B. 157, OCA staff urged lawmakers to go even further, by requiring background checks as well as collaboration with the Department of Children and Families to ensure that the child welfare agency can notify camps about reports of abuse or neglect by employees.
Lawmakers did not adopt those recommendations in this year’s bill.
