Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
Gaps in the state’s child care oversight processes pose potential risks to both child safety and federal funding, a report from Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer found last week. Problems with monitoring, inadequate background check practices and obsolete IT systems were highlighted in the 39-page document.
From 2022 to 2024, Hoffer’s report said, the state’s Child Development Division was inconsistent in how it classified and handled violations committed by individual providers. Vermont’s background check system for child care staff also continues to be both incomplete and unacceptably lengthy, the audit found.
In addition to in-state checks and a national FBI review for each candidate, Vermont is required to run full background checks in states where a new hire previously resided. Hoffer’s team found that the out-of-state information retrieved for such cases did not meet federal requirements due to miscommunications between Vermont state agencies.
Incomplete background check processes can result in severe federal penalties, Hoffer noted. In Vermont’s case, the state could lose more than half a million dollars in federal funding for child care if the federal Office of Child Care fully enforced its rules.
In a sample of new hire files beginning last August, the median background check duration was 77 days, the report states, which significantly surpasses the 45-day maximum imposed by federal regulations. Delays of this kind have also resulted in well-documented headaches for child care providers seeking to expand or replace staff, the report notes.
The temporary solution to this problem, Hoffer found, was an inadequate half-measure: The state has allowed child care staff to begin working before the required background checks cleared. While state officials ran checks on a number of databases before approving such temporary clearances each time, and also required that such employees be supervised until the background checks were completed, Hoffer’s report emphasized that such a system was not compliant.
The report cited several infractions along similar lines at federally funded Vermont Head Start providers, which operate child care programs under the same set of regulations.
Janet McLaughlin, who leads the Vermont Department for Children and Families’ Child Development Division, said in attached comments on the report that several agencies are “already working” to rectify the state’s background check system. Her team’s practices around out-of-state checks changed in February, she wrote, while a new digital system for organizing such information in compliance with federal rules may take until next year to roll out.
In January, McLaughlin told VTDigger that a $13 million federal award for child care meant the state could direct new resources to “dramatically reduce” wait times for background checks. That work should be complete by the end of this year, she said Monday.
Hoffer also found that certain provider violations that should have been classified as “serious” were not always appropriately categorized as such, which the report said posed issues for both future monitoring and providing accurate information to the public. In a small study of the thousands of reported violations, Hoffer’s team found 11 of 40 audited standard citations should have been marked as “serious.”
In Vermont, “serious” violations include inadequate staffing of child care facilities, inappropriate touch or discipline and inadequate sanitation.
“Parents using this to inform their choice of a child care program will be unaware of the severity of violations,” the report said.
Hoffer’s office also noted that officials did not always follow up with child care providers who had been cited to confirm that problems had been properly resolved and that parents had been given a full account of the situation.
The state’s IT system for tracking data around such violations is itself outdated, the report added, and Hoffer’s team expressed “concerns about the completeness” of the records they were able to draw from it.
In her attached comments, McLaughlin said her team would provide training and supervision to licensing staff to try and rectify these gaps. Her office is also in the process of issuing the contract for a new IT system to track data relating to child care centers.
“The report provides both recommendations for improvement and evidence that the State is continually working to enhance our systems to meet child and family needs and to come into compliance with all federal requirements,” McLaughlin said in a statement to VTDigger on Monday.
