CT Senate takes up legislation to expand oversight of municipal summer camps
Jessika Harkay / CT Mirror
Amy Lestinsky, Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff and Sen. Jorge Cabrera spoke at a news conference Tuesday morning in support of the passage of Senate Bill 6.
The Connecticut Senate took up S.B. 6 Tuesday, an omnibus bill that lays out extra support and protections for children across the state. Lawmakers expected the bill to pass, after debate stretched late into the afternoon.
The legislation proposes new regulations for annual reporting on disconnected youth and encourages early childhood education programs to use federal programs to provide more nutritious food to children. But proponents specifically highlighted the bill’s provisions intended to increase oversight of Connecticut town-run summer camps as its most important component.
“Today is about making our children safer,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said at a news conference Tuesday morning. “We do live in one of the safest states in the country, but there’s always more that we can do, and when we see problems, we work to fix those problems.”
Currently, Connecticut law allows municipal camps for children to operate with no state regulation or oversight, in contrast to programs run by private companies and nonprofits, which must be licensed by the state. Municipal programs instead fall under the umbrella of local governments, which set their own standards — like whether counselors receive background checks or whether water quality is tested.
“The fact that [the Office of Early Childhood] oversees child care and camps and yet does not oversee municipal camps is a very big hole,” said Committee on Children’s Co-chair Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton.
Senate Bill 6 would subject municipal camps to more state oversight and require them to be licensed by the Office of Early Childhood.
The proposal comes in the wake of a sex assault case in Bethany where a longtime counselor in the summer camps and after-school programs, who was also a substitute teacher in Bethany, was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, four counts of illegal sexual contact, five counts of fourth-degree sexual assault and one count of risk of injury to a minor.
Despite an allegation of sexual assault in December 2022, Anthony Mastrangelo remained on staff within the Bethany Parks and Recreational Department for several months.
“We cannot let something like this ever happen again,” Amy Lestinsky, a mother of one of the young girls who was sexually assaulted, said at Tuesday’s press conference.
“If our towns’ Parks and Recs program had been licensed, and proper rules and guidelines had been in place and were followed, it is likely he would have been immediately removed, been removed from the program and his removal would have alerted me of a problem,” Lestinsky said. “I would have put an end to him babysitting my daughter and she would have been spared.”
Sen. Jorge Cabrera, D-Bethany, added that the small town of around 5,500 people was “unfortunately a victim.”
“What we are attempting to do here is basically bring them to parity, just like we do for our nonprofits and our private camps, to make sure that our children are supported and make sure we have proper oversight,” Cabrera said.
The bill has met with opposition from Republican lawmakers who say the proposed legislation would not have prevented what happened in Bethany.
“[Mastrangelo] was a substitute teacher that had a background check [through the school system],” Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, said Tuesday at a news conference held by Republican leaders. “You can’t legislate somebody who’s going to act in that way.”
Senate Republicans also raised concerns at their news conference and on the Senate floor Tuesday that the legislation would “cripple” municipal summer camps across the state. Republican leaders said towns and cities would have to cover additional costs to implement the legislation, which could mean local towns spending thousands of dollars for things like upgrading bathroom facilities to meet existing licensure standards and paying for background checks.
Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, said the new rules would make programs less accessible to low-income families.
“[Democrats] are using it as an excuse to get more control,” Harding said. “Don’t put more regulations on municipal camps and take away that opportunity for countless kids across that state that attend these camps that do a great job. They’re safe, they’re well-run and they provide a great opportunity for students.”
The legislation would also cost at least $1.8 million in the upcoming fiscal year for the Office of Early Childhood to create a licensure department, according to an analysis by the state’s Office of Fiscal Analysis.
Somers and Harding were joined at the GOP news conference Tuesday afternoon by Valerie Stolfi Collins, the executive director of the Connecticut Recreation and Parks Association, and Mark Simmons, who serves as the Parks and Recreation and Youth Services Bureau in Preston, who also opposed the bill.
“Senate Bill 6 has site requirements, as well as facility requirements and restrictions on age for hiring staff. These requirements do not make it possible for us to operate our camps, and will simply force us to consolidate or close our camps,” Simmons said Tuesday. “We should be pointing our efforts toward making camps and childcare more accessible, and these stipulations and the requirements are simply counteractive to that.”
Republicans proposed several amendments on the floor Tuesday, seeking to eliminate the licensure requirements, provide state funding to municipalities to cover costs and other changes.
Maher urged lawmakers to vote against the amendments early Tuesday afternoon. While many camps claim the licensing requirements are onerous and could force them to close, Maher said, “The truth is that many, many municipal camps are already doing what is required in terms of licensing, because they want to provide good quality camps with oversight.”
She said that the pushback comes from concerns about cost increases, but she believes those worries are overblown. “If there is an increase, it would be a slight increase in cost.”
CT Mirror reporter Laura Tillman contributed to this story.
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments