Topeka ? The Kansas House gave first-round approval Wednesday to a bill requiring the state’s child welfare agency to promptly disclose information about children who die from abuse or neglect, including children who die while in state custody.

The bill comes in response to a number of high-profile cases involving the Department for Children and Families about children who had died from abuse and neglect, even after the agency had received reports about the child, as well as children who died while in custody of the state’s foster care system.

It would require DCF to disclose information about a child who dies of abuse or neglect within seven days of a request being filed under the Kansas Open Records Act.

That would include the age and sex of the child, the date of the death, a summary of any previous reports of abuse or neglect the agency received involving the same child, along with the findings of such reports, and a description of any services DCF had provided to the child.

It would also require DCF to make the same kind of disclosure within seven days about any child who dies while in state custody, even if the death is from an accident.

And although it does allow the agency to petition a court to seal records under certain circumstances, the bill provides that when the agency does so, it must notify anyone who has already filed a records request about that petition.

Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, admitted the bill does not go as far as some child welfare advocates had wanted.

“And there are a lot of folks who want much more public disclosure, and much more disclosure to the families of the children who died,” he said in a speech on the House floor. “But given all of the circumstances here, this is a very good start, and I think it’s reasonably crafted to eventually get us to where we need to be regarding what I believe to have been a pattern of secrecy and cover-up at DCF under a prior administration.”

Many of the recent incidents happened while Phyllis Gilmore was serving as secretary of DCF. She resigned, effective Dec. 1, and was replaced by Gina Meier-Hummel, of Lawrence, who initially asked for legislation to give the agency more ability to disclose records in child death cases.

Rep. Blaine Finch, R-Ottawa, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said the bill is more expansive than the one Meier-Hummel initially asked for.

“I know that child welfare has been an issue at the top of the mind for many of us over the last couple of years, and the last couple of sessions, and it is an important topic that needs further work,” he said. “But this is a step in the right direction.”

The bill, which makes a number of other changes to the Kansas Open Records Act, includes language from two other bills, one from the House and one from the Senate.

Using what lawmakers call a “gut-and-go” procedure, that language was inserted into Senate Bill 336, which was originally a bill dealing with payment of compensation to people wrongfully convicted of and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.

Among the other changes made in the bill is one that would allow the public to get faster access to records about the names of people who voted in a recent election.

In 2013, lawmakers passed a law prohibiting the disclosure of names of people who cast ballots in an election until the final canvass of the election by the county board of canvassers.

Carmichael said during a Democratic caucus meeting Wednesday that the law was a response to a number of challenged legislative elections in 2010 and 2012 in which attorneys for candidates sought information about people who had cast provisional ballots so they could argue for or against counting those ballots at the canvass.

Senate Bill 336 would repeal that 2013 law.