by Vermont Auditor Doug Hoffer Keeping children safe is one of state government’s most critical functions. Every day, thousands of Vermont parents entrust their kids to child care programs large and small. We decided to conduct an audit because we want to make sure the State is doing all it can to ensure they are safe early learning environments.
What did we find?
Our audit examined the Department for Children and Families (DCF) Child Development Division’s performance identifying and addressing violations at Vermont’s child care facilities. The Child Development Division (CDD) is responsible for the licensing and oversight of all regulated child care programs in Vermont and for complying with federal child care regulations.
As of January 1, 2025, Vermont had 32,568 child care slots in a total of 1,059 programs, including 150 pre-K programs in public schools. To ensure that programs are meeting the minimum requirements established in regulation to protect the health and safety of children in care, CDD licensors conduct onsite annual compliance visits and respond to complaints.
CDD receives grants via the federal Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) which supports improving the quality of child care services (Vermont received $17.7 million in state fiscal year 2025). To receive these funds, Vermont’s child care licensing system must comply with federal child care regulations including health and safety standards, such as required pre-employment background checks for child care staff.
Notable findings in the audit include:
- CDD conducted 5,254 site visits at childcare programs between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2024. Licensors cited violations in 1,713 of the site visits, including 131 serious violations. Because of concerns about the completeness of CDD's Bright Futures Information System (BFIS) data, these numbers should be considered minimums.
- The BFIS system’s flaws make performance evaluation challenging. Glitches like the one that causes text to disappear from a record or attach to an unrelated record when staff are adding information undermine the reliability of the data and hinder identification of all serious violations.
- We found that CDD was inconsistent in citing serious violations. From a subset of 155 incidents for which noncompliance could be a serious violation depending on circumstances, we selected a nonstatistical random sample of 40 and concluded that 11 should have been cited as “serious” per State statute. Serious violations represent greater risks than simple violations and therefore require parental notification and prompt follow-up to ensure violations are corrected.
- CDD allows prospective child care facility staff to work with children prior to completion of any criminal history fingerprint checks which violates federal rules.
- Per federal rules, the entirety of the background check process must be completed within 45 days, which CDD and the Vermont Crime Information Center, another state organization involved in the process, have not been able to achieve. We found that for 83 background checks commenced in late August, more than half were not completed 85 days later. For comparison, CDD reports that both New Hampshire and Maine can provide results in 7 to 10 days.
- Potential repercussions for CDD from noncompliance with background check requirements include forfeiture of up to $505,731 of federal funds to the State based upon current funding levels, as well as funding to Vermont’s seven Head Start organizations.
Everyone knows how badly the State needs more high-quality child care slots for infants and toddlers, but with children’s well-being at stake we have to be as safety-focused as possible. The federal rules are in place for a reason, so State government needs to find a way to comply. Given the money at stake, we literally cannot afford not to.
I appreciate the work of my audit staff who completed this project and the CDD staff who were extremely professional throughout the process. I am extremely pleased that CDD intends to adopt all of the recommendations we made.
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