Child care sought for employees

      CARSON CITY -- Casinos and other big Nevada employers would have to study the possibility of on-site child care for their employees under a bill approved Tuesday by the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee.
      "The bill is the first step in getting employers to look at their workers' needs in terms of child care," said Sen. Joe Neal, the bill's sponsor. "Hopefully once the information's there, they'll do something with it."
      Neal, D-North Las Vegas, said SB275 was designed to help parents who are moving off welfare and into the workforce.
      "It wasn't meant to force employers to provide child care," Neal said. "We're just trying to get the issue out to determine where we're at with child care."
      The original bill was criticized by many employers -- especially the gambling industry -- for a provision stating "if the employer determines ... accessible child care is feasible, he shall ... provide child care for his employees."
      Ray Bacon of the Nevada Manufacturers Association said he wouldn't want to see mandatory on-site child care in Nevada.
      "This bill may be driving toward on-site and that would not be wise for many locations like mining or some factories," Bacon said.
      Jon Sasser of Washoe Legal Services helped amend the bill to erase the mandatory language.
      Now, the bill says an employer of at least 300 people, if requested by employees, must do a study of providing accessible and affordable child care and then report the findings to workers and to the state labor commissioner.
      "We're not creating a mandate for employers to provide child care, but they will have to take a serious look at it if employees request it," Sasser said. "Employers will be looking at different funding schemes available which could open employees to new funding from the state."
      Employers were concerned that mandatory child care would have resulted in the reallocation of employee benefit budgets to cover the provision for a handful of employees at the expense of a more equitable distribution of benefit funds to all or most employees, said Kara Kelley, vice president of government affairs at the chamber.
      "Employers only have so much in their budgets for benefits," Kelley said.
      The bill also was amended at the suggestion of Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, to remove the term "private employment" so that state workers would be included.
      Jerry Allen of the state Human Resources Department said the state will have $18 million this year, $18.4 million in 1998 and $19.6 million in 1999 from a federal block grant and matching state funds for child care.
      "Traditionally we haven't had any state money for child care and the federal funding amounted to about $6 million a year," Allen said. "This new funding will make a major impact."
      Allen said the state has had long waiting lists for people needing child-care subsidies, and the new funding will help reduce those lists.
      People approved for the program get vouchers to pay for child care at any location they prefer. The parents must make copayments for the services, if they can afford to, Allen said.
     
     Review-Journal writer Monica Caruso contributed to this report.