The Associated Press

COLUMBUS - Day-care centers with numerous violations of state law routinely keep licenses that allow them to care for children, a newspaper reported Sunday.

A few centers have been cited more than a dozen times for the same problems, including some that resulted in injuries to children, according to a Columbus Dispatch analysis of more than 6,600 state inspection reports for the two years ending Feb. 1.

One in four of the state's 3,500 licensed day-care centers, which care for 227,000 children, was cited for having too many children and too few employees, one in three for unsafe conditions and 45 percent did not run criminal background checks, the newspaper said.

State inspectors "see a lot of day-care centers where they wouldn't put their own children," said Barbara Beymer of Action for Children, a Columbus nonprofit agency that helps parents research day care.

During the two-year period examined by The Dispatch, 10 percent of the centers were cited two or more times for understaffing, unqualified employees and failing to run background checks.

Although information about these violations is compiled in a computer, state officials do not use the database to identify the worst repeat offenders or systematically track centers with poor inspection records, the newspaper said.

The state hasn't fined a licensed center in at least 20 years and closed only two last year, down from 10 in 1998, the newspaper said.

Carol Ann Ankrom, who heads Ohio's day-care licensing program at the Department of Job and Family Services, said the state focuses on making sure problems are fixed, although fining centers and revoking licenses can result in more children being in unregulated, home-based day care.

Maintaining its staff of inspectors amid statewide budget cuts, starting a Web site listing recent violations at licensed day-care centers and meeting a goal of inspecting every center at least twice a year shows the state is trying to step up enforcement, officials said.

The Department of Job and Family Services relies on 51 inspectors to recommend whether licenses should be revoked. Those recommendations go through several supervisors and lawyers, who decide whether to take the case before an administrative judge.

It typically takes six months to a year to close a center, according to a report by state regulators who want to streamline the process.

"Centers now feel they can be out of compliance and it's OK," said Maggie Summers, a day-care director who is assisting with a Columbus-area United Way program to improve child care. "Are we helping families by allowing their children to be in subquality care?"