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TOPEKA — Legislators trying to work out a compromise on legislation to tighten regulation of day care facilities are closer to agreement but running out of time.

Members of a House-Senate conference committee working on the day care bill met for the first time Wednesday as other legislators focused mostly on budget and tax bills. The six member committee is trying to reach agreement on Substitute for House Bill 2536, which would require the inspection and licensing of all day care facilities in the state.

Currently, about 2,500 or the state’s 6,700 child-care facilities are operated by “registered” providers whose operations are not routinely inspected or licensed.

A senate passed version of the bill would establish a “risk-based” system to give inspectors time to catch up on the backlog of registered homes. During the catch-up period, only licensed homes with a pending complaint or a history of compliance problems would be inspected.

The House Health and Human Services Committee developed an alternative to the Senate bill that raises the amount the Kansas Department of Health and Environment can charge in fees to cover the cost of inspecting each day care at least once every 15 months between now and July 1, 2012 and annually after that.

“I cannot and will not object to more frequent inspections. And, we’ve paid for it,” said Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, a member of the conference committee and an advocate of the risk-based approach in the Senate bill.

One of the few remaining sticking points in the negotiations is language in the Senate bill that spells out requirements for providers supervising children under the age of 5. It would require direct visual supervision of children while they are awake and regular monitoring of those who are napping. Members of the HHS committee struck the supervision language from their version of the bill at the urging of Chair Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, who said it raised liability concerns and could make it difficult for providers to purchase insurance.

But Kelly and lobbyists for Kansas Action for Children, the nonprofit group advocating for the bill, want the supervisory requirements written back into the legislation. So does Kim Engelman, whose 13-month-old daughter, Lexie, died during her third day at a Johnson County day care facility when the provider left her and two other toddlers unsupervised for a period of time.

“We’re pushing hard in the 11th hour to get that,” said Engelman, an assistant professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who has spent days at the Statehouse monitoring the negotiations.

The conference committee is scheduled to meet today during breaks in the budget and tax debates on the House and Senate floors. Though time is running out on the 2010 session, Sen. Jim Barnett, R-Emporia, head of the Senate negotiating team, said the day care regulation bill is a priority.

“I think there is a high level of interest in getting this done,” Barnett said.

The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies recently ranked Kansas 47th for the strength of its child care center oversight and regulation. In the past three years, according to KAC, 30 Kansas children have died in child care settings and 72 have sustained serious injuries.