House Bill 904

Chair's Name: Wendell Willard

Committee: Judiciary Civil

House Sponsor: Sean Jerguson

Chairman Willard’s Opinion of the legislation:

HB 904 makes changes to the law relating to background checks for daycare center personnel.  Currently, daycare center directors (defined in the bill as on-site managers) must undergo a GCIC background check.  HB 904 requires the employees as well as the directors of daycare centers to undergo both a GCIC (Georgia Crime Information Center) and NCIC (National Crime Information Center) background check.  There are three sizes of daycare centers defined in Title 20: larger “day-care centers”, medium-sized “group day-care homes”, and small “family day-care homes”, and all three sizes of daycare centers are covered by the bill.  Additionally, HB 904 requires all persons age 18 or older who reside in a home where a family day-care home operates, to undergo the required background checks.  The bill modifies the “preliminary” background check provisions in the current law, and requires background check applications to accompany a daycare center license application.  HB 904 also forbids daycares centers from having an employee or director who has been convicted of certain crimes. DHR and GBI support this bill.

This Legislation:

•        Strengthens our Traditional Family Structure by protecting children from spending time around criminals.

•        Increases Personal Responsibility by providing more information about the criminal backgrounds of daycare personnel to allow daycare centers take responsibility to ensure that criminals are not caring for children.

This committee substitute comes to the Floor under the Modified Structured Rule.