Official Summary Text
AB 1981, as amended, Aguiar-Curry.
Subsidized childcare: reimbursement rates: reporting.
Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services, in collaboration with the State Department of Education, to implement a reimbursement system plan that establishes reasonable standards and assigned reimbursement rates for subsidized childcare and development services, and to develop and conduct an alternative methodology for ratesetting, as specified.
Existing law requires the Governor and the Legislature to, by no later than July 1, 2025, establish reimbursement rates based on the alternative methodology, as specified. Existing law requires the department to provide quarterly updates from October 1, 2024, to July 1, 2027, inclusive, on the implementation of the new reimbursement rates set under the alternative methodology. If the new reimbursement rates do not take effect on July 1, 2025, existing law also requires the
department to provide the Legislature with a timeline for transitioning from the rates that are in effect on July 1, 2025, to the new established rates.
This bill would instead, under those circumstances, require the department to provide the Chairperson of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee with the department’s anticipated timeline for the above-described rate transition. The bill would also require the quarterly reports described above to continue until the new reimbursement rates set under the alternative methodology are fully implemented.
Existing law states the intent of the Legislature that the reimbursement rates established under the alternative methodology satisfy certain parameters, including, among others, that the rates vary based on geography, type of care setting, regulatory requirements applicable to each type of care
setting, time categories, and child age.
This bill would impose various requirements on the department when establishing new reimbursement rates under the alternative methodology, to the extent those requirements are consistent with the Child Care and Development Fund state plan. Among other things, the bill would require the department to vary rates based on specific geographic regions and specific age groupings and to include in the rates an extended hours care rate, an enhanced inclusion rate for children with special needs, and an enhanced transportation rate. The bill would require the new reimbursement rates to be implemented with regards to family childcare providers within 90 days of the state and the provider organization representing those providers reaching agreement on the rates and would prohibit reimbursement rates from being reduced below the
amounts in effect on the effective date of the bill.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.