Sneak Preview: ACF Proposes Amendments to CCDF Regulations

(The following was excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants Compliance Expert article.) The Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) recently proposed to amend the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) regulations at 45 C.F.R. Part 98 to ease the costs of child care, and to encourage states to use grants and contracts to increase the availability of reliable care.

CCDF funding supports families with low incomes access child care and the creation of increased quality of child care for all children. CCDF funding promotes the quality of child care for the sector, as CCDF lead agencies must spend at least 12% of their CCDF funding each year to increase the quality of child care.

ACF noted in a July 13 notice of proposed rulemaking that lead agencies designed by state recipients to administer CCDF funding are reporting that families are struggling to find or afford high-quality child care for their children because of the limited supply — there are not enough programs to serve families who need it, many programs do not offer care the hours or days families require it, and unaffordable costs lead parents to select lower quality care or forego it altogether.

For many families, child care is prohibitively expensive. “The cost of child care can drive families to seek out less expensive care, which may be unlicensed or unregulated and have less rigorous quality or safety standards and be less reliable, or forego child care entirely and exit the workforce,” ACF explains in the proposed rule. “Even when families receive child care subsidies, affordability, in terms of co-payments, often remain a concern and can limit families’ access to the child care that best meets their needs.”

The proposed rule would revise several provisions within the CCDF regulation, with the goal to lower families’ costs for child care, improve parent choice to access care that meets their needs, strengthen payment practices to child care providers, reduce bureaucracy for better implementation, and implement technical and other changes for improved clarity.

One aspect of the proposal aims at improving the lack of supply of child care for underserved communities and populations by requiring states and territories to provide child care services through grants and contracts, including, at a minimum, using some grant or contract funds for services for infants and toddlers, children with disabilities and nontraditional hour care.

(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)

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