By Rick Pluta
Lansing, MI – Governor Granholm has signed a law that makes it clear that babysitters and neighbors watching their friends' children don't have to get state daycare licenses. The new law is the final chapter in a controversy where a Middleville woman was ordered to stop watching her neighbor's children before they got on the school bus. The case drew national attention.
State Representative Mike Huckleberry helped draft the law. He says the state Department of Human Services was just following rules that, taken literally, didn't make sense.
He says the new law will allow babysitters, friends, relatives and neighbors to watch children for an hour or two a day without running afoul of the law.
People who are paid more than $600 a year by a family to take children into their home would still have to get a daycare license.