(1)(a) The board must meet quarterly and make recommendations to the director that will enhance and improve the employment standards of child care workers. The board must recommend statewide standards and may also recommend standards that apply to specific child care occupations or geographic regions.
(b) The board may not recommend standards regarding licensing of child care facilities. The board may not recommend standards that are less protective of or beneficial to child care workers as any other applicable statute or rule or any standard previously established by the board.
(2)(a) The board's initial investigations, public hearings, data gathering, and recommendations must prioritize child care worker staffing, recruitment, retention, and staffing ratios.
(b) Additionally, the board may investigate:
(i) The adequacy of wage rates and other compensation policies of child care employers to ensure the provision of quality services and sufficient levels of recruitment and retention of child care employees;
(ii) The sufficiency of levels of recruitment and retention of child care employees;
(iii) The adequacy of the role of child care employees in making decisions affecting their wages and working conditions;
(iv) The adequacy and enforcement of training requirements for child care employees;
(v) The impact of systemic racism and economic injustice on child care employees and the adequacy of efforts to alleviate such impact through the development of career paths through partnerships between labor and management and other methods;
(vi) The adequacy of payment practices and policies of the state as such practices and policies relate to the reimbursement of child care employers for the provision of services under a child care program; and
(vii) The adequacy of access and costs to workers of background checks, fingerprinting, bloodborne pathogen training, tuberculosis tests, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid certification, and other safety requirements.
(3) The board may consider the following types of information when developing recommendations:
(a) Wage rate and benefit data collected by or submitted to the board for child care workers in the relevant geographic area and child care occupations, including wage and benefit data of similarly situated child care occupations on the west coast of the United States;
(b) Statements showing wage rates and benefits paid to child care workers in the relevant geographic area and child care occupations, including wage and benefit statements of similarly situated child care occupations on the west coast of the United States;
(c) Signed collective bargaining agreements applicable to child care workers in the relevant geographic area and child care occupations, including collective bargaining agreements of similarly situated child care occupations on the west coast of the United States;
(d) Testimony and information from current and former child care workers, organizations representing child care workers, child care employers, parents of children currently in child care, and child care organizations;
(e) Local minimum employment standards;
(f) Information submitted by or obtained from state and local government entities, including registries or data regarding employee training, recruitment, and retention;
(g) Information from a federally approved rate-setting tool for child care funding; and
(h) Any other information pertinent to establishing minimum child care employment standards.
(4) Based on the investigations and information gathered pursuant to this section, the board shall prepare a series of reports with findings and recommendations, and shall make those reports publicly available on the department's website. The board must allow a minority report to be included with any report prepared by the board, if requested by a member of the board. The reports must include a breakdown of the vote on each of the board's recommendations, including the votes in favor of and against each recommendation and how each board member voted on the recommendations.
[ 2026 c 148 s 4.]