It has been characterized as a debate of fixing what isn’t broken versus preventing potential tragedy.

The controversy over whether to regulate summer and after-school programs for children has dragged on for three years.

The two sides met Wednesday with Kansas Department of Health and Environment officials in hopes of resolving the debate.

“We had a healthy meeting,” said Laura Kelly, executive director at the Kansas Recreation and Park Assn. “It looks like there’s starting to be a move toward the middle.”

Kelly and Stuart Little, a lobbyist for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Kansas, have opposed past attempts to regulate summer and after-school programs, citing the likelihood of increased costs and minimal benefit.

“They’ve tried to treat us like a child-care program, but that’s not what we do,” Little said.

And there’s little or no evidence, they said, that being unregulated has harmed children.

“I just want to make sure kids have a safe place to go at the end of the day,” said Janet Murphy, executive director at the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, 1520 Haskell Ave.

Boys & Girls Club provides a variety of summer and after-school programs for more than 500 children in six locations around the city.

Harly Moore, left, 10, shows Tate Truscello, 11, her collage she made for art class at the Lawrence Boys & Girls Club, 1520 Haskell Ave. Programs such as the Boys & Girls Club, which are considered drop-in type programs and not day care, are difficult to regulate and license, according to state officials. Moore and Truscello attended the club Wednesday.

“I don’t want to see anything happen that would make those numbers go down,” Murphy said.

But Kathy Damron, a lobbyist for the state’s YMCAs, said leaving the programs unregulated was irresponsible.

“I understand what they’re saying, but you don’t put off regulating until something tragic happens,” Damron said. “You regulate to prevent tragedy.”

Kansas YMCAs are all for regulating summer and after-school programs, including their own, Damron said.

Much of the debate surrounds efforts to require programs to perform expensive background checks on its employees and to hire enough workers to ensure adequate supervision.

In 2002 and 2003, KDHE adopted both requirements. But lawmakers, responding to calls from programs in their districts, twice blocked the regulations from taking effect and directed KDHE to address opponents’ concerns.

Two weeks ago, the interim Committee on Children’s Issues backed a move to exempt school-, county- or city-run programs and to require those run by nonprofit groups — Boys & Girls Clubs, for example — to meet standards handed down from their national offices.

Also, the proposed regulations required prospective employees to sign a form allowing background checks but didn’t require the programs to actually do the background check.

The YMCAs opposed the changes. The Kansas Recreation and Park Assn. and the state’s Boys & Girls Clubs supported them.

“We’re not opposed to background checks,” Kelly said. “But we are saying, don’t make us do background checks on every full- and part-time summer-camp volunteer and every full- and part-time employee.”

Left unchecked, the regulations would have forced the state’s summer programs to conduct between 12,000 and 18,000 background checks, Kelly said.

“You’re going to ask the KBI to do that? All at once, in April or May?” Kelly said. “That doesn’t make sense. We’re not opposed to background checks, we’re just saying that if we’re going to require a system, then the system has to make sense.”

Kelly said she didn’t know of any established after-school or summer program that did not conduct background checks. Lawrence Boys & Girls Club and Lawrence Parks and Recreation do background checks on their workers.

KDHE spokeswoman Sharon Watson said plans called for presenting the revised regulations to Children’s Issues Committee in January, after which they will be sent to the Department of Administration, the Attorney General’s Office and the Legislature’s Committee on Rules and Regulations for review and approval.