Understanding ACF-696 Financial Reporting Data for Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Policy-Relevant Research

• In Event: Federal Agency Poster Session

Abstract

State and federal agency priorities can often be identified through the ways in which agencies allocate their program spending. For example, in the 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act, Congress established minimum spending requirements for quality improvement activities and to improve infant and toddler quality in child care settings. Each year, the Administration for Children and Families publishes aggregated data on the state and territory Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) expenditures as reported on the ACF-696 financial reporting form. Through the ACF-696, states and territories report on in specific categories, such as quality activities, direct and indirect services, and administrative activities. These data are valuable to researchers in linking financial data to child care policies at the state and territory level, as well as to other administrative or programmatic data and information, in order to explore policy-relevant research questions.
This poster will describe the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) funding streams available to states and territories and how to access and interpret the published expenditure report data. The poster will also preview data that will be available on spending made available from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The CARES Act provided $3.5 billion dollars for CCDF programs to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the pandemic. The Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 expenditure data will be the first to include CCDF expenditure data for the CARES Act.

Author

• Rachel McKinnon, United States Department of Health and Human Services
  Presenting Author