Children sleep during nap time at a Minnesota preschool in Minneapolis on Dec. 30.
Renee Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images
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Renee Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images
US Department of Health and Human Services announced On Monday, he will roll back a number of Biden-era rules governing one of the largest federal sources of child care funding. The move comes less than a week after HHS confirmed it was freezing all federal funding under the same program.
The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) directs money to states, tribes, and territories to help make child care more affordable for low-income families.
Biden administration rules encouraged states to base payments to child care providers on enrollment rather than verified attendance, pay providers in advance and prioritize guaranteed slots with providers over vouchers.
Now HHS says it plans to reinstate attendance-based billing, no longer require providers to pay upfront, and will change the priority of vouchers.
“When controls are lacking, bad actors can bill for children who are not there,” said Alex Adams, assistant secretary for family support at HHS's Administration for Children and Families. “Families and taxpayers deserve proof that services are being provided to children.”
But child welfare advocates told NPR that states already have many controls in place to prevent fraud.
“We know it's true that there are long-standing requirements for program integrity to be in place and updated regularly, updated annually,” said Susan Gail Perry, CEO of Child Care Aware of America., which helps families access affordable child care across the country.
According to the latest data published on the CCDF website, in 2019, approximately 1.4 million children and 857,700 families received child care assistance through CCDF each month. HHS website.
Melissa Boteach, chief policy officer for Zero to Three, a nonprofit that advocates for babies, toddlers and families, said the proposed policy changes create “chaos and confusion” by eliminating regulations aimed at making the child care industry more stable and affordable.
This follows a funding freeze announced over the holidays.
Monday's announcement came days after HHS said it was freezing federal funding provided through the CCDF.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told NPR on Wednesday that the agency was freezing CCDF funds immediately and said the agency would unfreeze the funding once individual states provide certain “administrative data.”
“Many states that are supposed to administer these programs are still unclear what exactly this means.” – Boteach said. “And this uncertainty has real consequences for families and early educators.”
She also said there was “no clarity about whether funding would be received, what would need to be done to get it running again, and what states should do in the meantime.”
HHS has not yet responded to NPR's request for clarification on how Monday's announcement relates to the funding freeze.
“What we do know is that child care providers operate on the principle [a] very small… profit margin,” said Perry of Child Care Aware of America.
She said a lack of funding “even for a month” could lead to the closure of child care centers, which would impact both children who receive CCDF funding and those who do not.
Spotlight on Child Care Providers in Minnesota
Recent attention to federal child care funding shows response to fraud allegations Minnesota child care providers.
How NPR reports.The day after Christmas, Nick Shirley, a right-wing social media influencer, posted a video that he claimed showed Somali American-run daycare centers defrauding the federal government of millions of dollars. The video does not contain clear evidence, but it has gone viral.
December 30, HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill published on X about “serious allegations that the State of Minnesota has diverted millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycare centers throughout Minnesota over the past decade.” He announced action “against the rampant fraud that seems to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country,” including requiring “substantiation and receipt or photographic evidence before we send money to the state.”
In a statement from HHS on Monday, O'Neill said, “The reforms we are enacting will make it harder to commit fraud.”
The rule changes are subject to 30 days of public comment, according to HHS.
