14-05-2025
Senate votes to advance summer camp regulations bill
CONNECTICUT (WTNH) — After an animated debate on the floor of the State Senate, legislators advanced a measure that would impose new regulations on summer day camps operated by municipalities all across Connecticut.
The Democrats who back the legislation say it will subject municipal summer camps to the same set of rules that other childcare operations must follow. Those regulations include mandatory background checks for personnel and minimum requirements for facilities, including set ratios on the number of bathrooms per child.
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The potential costs of those new requirements have alarmed local parks and recreation officials around the state who say that they may be forced to raise prices or close camps altogether.
'These requirements do not make it possible to operate our camps and will simply force us to consolidate or close,' Mark Simmons, the parks and recreation director for the town of Preston, said at a press conference with Republican state senators on Tuesday afternoon.
Legislators were motivated to act in part by the case of a town employee and camp counselor who was accused of child sexual assault. Democratic State Sen. Ceci Maher, who co-chairs the legislative committee with responsibility for child welfare issues, characterized the relative lack of state regulations over town-run summer camps as a 'loophole.'
'Why are they not being licensed?' Maher rhetorically asked in an interview with News 8 during Tuesday's debate.
Maher was on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism from Republican state senators who argued that the proposed regulations would not have prevented the alleged abuse in Bethany and that the imposition of new rules would cripple one of the few affordable childcare options available to families when school is out.
'In many communities, not just the lowest cost, but the only affordable option for summer care is the town's local day camp,' State Sen. Jason Perillo, the ranking Republican senator on the Children's Committee, said.
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Perillo engaged Maher and her fellow Democrats in an unusually heated debate, characterizing them as arrogant in the face of towns decrying the bill. The Republicans proposed a string of amendments that Perillo said were intended to 'pump the breaks on that arrogance.'
One amendment would have outright eliminated the proposed new regulations. Another would have kept the background check requirement while eliminating the facilities rules. Those amendments were shot down by Democrats, who hold a two-to-one majority in the state senate.
State Sen. Bob Duff, the Democratic majority leader of the state senate, took the floor to say that Perillo's comments 'crossed the line.'
'I think we're better than that,' Duff said.
The bill passed on party lines, except for Democratic State Sen. Cathy Osten, who joined Republicans in opposition.
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