Taxpayer-funded daycare centers in Arizona failed to meet some of the most basic health and safety requirements of the federal government despite numerous state inspections aimed at catching such violations.
The Arizona childcare facilities are just the latest to come under fire for their gaps in safety. Daycares backed by the same Department of Health and Human Services program in Louisiana, Michigan and Maine have also been the subject of critical inspector general reports.
State officials tasked with licensing and monitoring the Arizona centers conducted the required reviews of childcare facilities that received federal grant money from HHS, but they missed a number of safety hazards in each of the three daycares the inspector general reviewed, according to a report made public Tuesday.
For example, one daycare had a “rusty metal plate with sharp points” bolted near a playground. Another left dangerous cleaning products like Raid insect killer and Lysol cleaner in areas accessible to children.
The watchdog found childrens’ sleeping mats and sheets stacked beside a toilet and a “smelly diaper bin” sitting in a classroom in some of the childcare facilities.
Among the 36 total “instances of potentially hazardous conditions” were dirty play areas, inadequate fire standards and medications left in unlocked cabinets that children could access.
What’s more, some of the daycare providers didn’t follow criminal background check rules for their employees.
HHS funds a total of 896 such facilities in Arizona alone through its Child Care and Development Fund, a grant program established to provide childcare services for low-income families while parents work, receive training or go to school. State and federal funding for the program reached $5.2 billion in 2012.
The report came months after the inspector general discovered similar violations in a handful of Maine daycares.
Like in the Arizona review, the watchdog attributed some of those safety lapses to the heavy caseloads that Maine licensing officials had to handle in the August 2014 audit.
A report on Louisiana daycares, released last year alongside findings from Maine, pointed to inadequate training of the state officials charged with inspecting such facilities
The HHS watchdog said a 2011 review of safety violations in dozens of early childhood facilities funded under the Head Start program prompted it to look into whether similar hazards existed in its Child Care and Development Fund-backed centers.
Head Start childcare centers were riddled with dangerous conditions, such as open gates that led to busy streets, broken playgrounds and even, at one facility, a machete left lying near a play area, the 2011 report found.
Go here to read the full HHS IG report.
