REGISTRY OF CHILDREN'S DEATHS S.B. 257 (S-2):
FLOOR SUMMARY
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Senate Bill 257 (Substitute S-2 as reported)
Sponsor: Senator Mark C. Jansen
Committee: Families and Human Services
CONTENT
The bill would amend the Child Protection Law to require the Department of Human Services to establish and maintain a registry of statistical information regarding children's deaths that was accessible to the public.
The registry could not disclose any identifying information regarding a child or adult involved in the investigation or incident and could only include statistical information covering all of the following:
-- The number of children who died while in foster care.
-- The number of children who died while under court jurisdiction for child abuse or neglect.
-- The number of children who died after having involvement with Child Protective Services (CPS).
-- The total number of children who died under the above conditions in the preceding year.
-- A narrative of the manner and cause of death.
-- The number and type of child abuse or neglect complaints against parents before the child's death and, if there were more than one complaint in the two years preceding the child's death, the CPS category given to each investigated complaint.
The narrative included in the registry could not disclose or include any confidential information.
The proposed registry would have to be separate from the central registry of reports of alleged child abuse or neglect created under the Law.
MCL 722.627b Legislative Analyst: Curtis Walker
FISCAL IMPACT
The Department has noted that data that would be used in the central registry mandated by the bill are already collected by the child fatality review teams and made available to the Legislature. The bill would likely lead to a small, indeterminate increase in administrative cost to the Department of Human Services associated with modifying available information for use in a central registry and modifying the Department's internet home page to meet the requirements of the bill.
Date Completed: 3-12-09 Fiscal Analyst: David Fosdick
Analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent. sb257/0910