The Legislature finds and declares the following:
(a) It is significant that the Santa Clara County Intergovernmental Council has found that due to changes in the labor force and an increase in the child population, 25 percent of the nation’s workers must make child care arrangements.
(b) Californians will benefit from investment in child care. According to the House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, one dollar invested in preschool education results in a savings of four dollars and seventy-five cents ($4.75) in social costs.
(c) Allowing and encouraging businesses to open onsite or nearsite employer-sponsored child care centers has had a number of positive effects for Californians, including reduced job absenteeism, closer parent-child relationships, and increased worker productivity.
(d) In a 1990 study, the Department of General Services found that working parents add five to six miles to their daily commute for transporting their children to child care and school, and that the effect of this commute is 1,352 extra miles driven each year and an additional 56 pounds of auto emissions per person per year.
(Added by Stats. 1994, Ch. 690, Sec. 4. Effective January 1, 1995.)