Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF)

FUNDING AMOUNT

FEDERAL: $16,731,669 AND $9,375,158; STATE: $33,038,068

Authority

CCDF is the finance mechanism that funds Nebraska’s child care subsidy program (previously called Title XX). Separate federal- and state-level funding streams are combined to subsidize the cost of child care for children of low-income parents. Authorization of funds originates from four sources: 1) Discretionary funding authorized by the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act, subject to annual appropriation; (2) an entitlement portion of mandatory and matching funds made available under Section 418 of the Social Security Act; (3) state Maintenance of Effort (MOE) and matching funds; and (4) federal funds transferred to CCDF from states’ Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants. Statutorily, the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) was first enacted under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 and then was amended and reauthorized by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, the act that also established TANF block grants. The most recent reauthorization of the CCDBG was under the CCDBG Act of 2014.vi

Establishing the Funding Estimates

Funds for Nebraska’s child care subsidy program, labeled as “subprogram 44 child care for 341 public assistance,” reside within a larger pot of public assistance funds. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS) reported $104,469,542 in total CCDF funds serving children up to age 12 in FY 2019.vii Of this total, $58,365,208 were funds from the State of Nebraska General Fund and $46,113,334 were funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Child Care. The values provided were used to calculate the federal and state contributions as a percentage of the total.