River's Law Mandates No Pools and Door Alarms for Subsidized Child Care Facilities

The new "River’s Law" targets child safety by tightening the rules for any child care provider receiving federal funds through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). The bill is straightforward: it adds two specific, mandatory safety requirements to the list of things subsidized facilities must follow.

The New Safety Checklist: Pools Out, Alarms In

If a child care center takes federal CCDBG money, they now have to comply with a couple of big changes. First, the law mandates that providers absolutely cannot have a swimming pool on the property where they offer care. If they have one now, they must get rid of it or stop using that property for child care. This is a clear move to eliminate the risk of accidental drowning, which is a leading cause of death for young children. Second, every facility must install alarms on all doors and windows. The goal here is to give staff an immediate alert if a child tries to exit or if someone tries to enter unexpectedly, significantly boosting security and monitoring capabilities (SEC. 2).

What This Means for Providers and Parents

For parents, this bill is designed to offer peace of mind, especially regarding the most serious accidental risk—drowning. Knowing that the subsidized facility your child attends has a hard ban on pools and enhanced security alarms is a tangible safety upgrade. However, the costs of these mandates don't just disappear. For the child care centers—many of which are small businesses or non-profits already operating on thin margins—these changes represent a direct hit to their budget.

Imagine a smaller, established provider who uses a pool for supervised summer water activities or even just has an old, unused pool on the property. They now face the potentially massive expense of filling it in, demolishing it, or relocating, all to comply with the "No Pools Allowed" rule. Similarly, installing alarms on every single door and window across a large facility isn't cheap, and the bill doesn't appear to offer dedicated funding for these structural upgrades. This economic burden could force some subsidized providers—particularly those in high-cost areas—to close or stop accepting federal grants, which could reduce the overall availability of affordable care for working families.