Am. Sub. H.B. 153 of the 129th General Assembly made changes to the Ohio Revised Code that require revisions to child care licensing inspection procedures and the implementation of a new "Continuous License" concept. The department's goals are to shift resources to focus on new businesses and those programs experiencing challenges with maintaining licensing compliance, eliminate administrative burdens for the department and providers and to strengthen the revocation process. This letter defines Continuous License, the inspection schedule for all licensed child care centers and type A homes and the time line for implementation.

What is a Continuous License?

Child care programs in Ohio have historically been issued biennial licenses that required programs to apply to have their licenses renewed every two years. This involved completing the renewal application and submitting the renewal fee. With a Continuous License, child care centers and type A homes will be issued licenses that do not have an expiration date. A license will now be valid with no expiration date, unless the program requests to close and terminate the license or ODJFS revokes the license. Due to the elimination of the license expiration date, there will no longer be a two-year licensing period upon which to base the required inspection schedule and programs will no longer need to apply to renew licenses or pay renewal fees.

License Inspection Schedule

Current:

The license inspection period is a two-year period beginning at the initial license issuance date and extending two years. All full-time programs receive two inspections during each year of the license period, while part-time programs receive one inspection during each year of the license period. The provisional period is a six-month period which begins with the initial license issuance date and during this provisional period one inspection is completed.

Under the New Continuous License:

During the new license inspection period, a full time child care center or type A home will receive at least two unannounced licensing inspections in the 12-month license inspection period. However, a full-time child care center or type A home that meets the following criteria will receive one unannounced licensing inspection:

• The program is a Step Up to Quality (SUTQ) Star Rated program.
• The program has been Star Rated for at least 12 months.
• The program has not had its Star Rating suspended or removed during the previous 12-month period.

Provisional License: Effective September 29, 2011 the Provisional License will be issued for a 12-month period. During the Provisional License, a full-time program will have at least three unannounced inspections and a part-time program will have at least two unannounced inspections during the 12 months of the license provisional period.

The chart below provides a comparison between the current inspection schedule and the new Continuous License schedule.

*Step Up to Quality initial Star Rating must have been awarded at least 12 months prior and the rating must not have been suspended or removed during the previous 12 months. These programs will continue to receive annual SUTQ verification visits from the SUTQ licensing specialists.

All licensed child care centers and type A homes were evaluated to determine the minimum number of inspections needed for the new license inspection period based on the above criteria. Each program is scheduled to receive the inspections as shown in the chart above. If a SUTQ program has its Star Rating suspended or removed, that program will receive a second visit.

Please contact the Help Desk for the Office of Families and Children at 1-866-886-3537, option 4 if you have any questions. The electronic versions of the Child Care Manuals are located at: http://emanuals.jfs.ohio.gov. The manuals contain all child care rules, transmittal letters and procedure letters.

INSTRUCTIONS: The following chart identifies the material that needs to be inserted into the Child Care Center Manual and into the Child Care Type A Home Manual.