The Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) is a federal program that provides funding to each state every year based on a formula allocation. CCDF is the primary federal funding source for child-care subsidies to help eligible low-income working families access child care and to improve the quality of child care for all children. In GY2020, for example, Utah received approximately $98.5 million in CCDF funding. As a result of the pandemic, Utah has received three additional rounds of funding from the CCDF. Utah should invest these additional CCDF resources to support the children hardest hit by the pandemic by supporting immigrant communities and allowing mixed-status families access to Utah’s child-care subsidy.
The first additional round of pandemic funding, the CARES Act, in March of 2020, awarded an additional $3.5 billion in supplemental CCDF Discretionary funds throughout the country. Utah reived $40.4 million in this first round. These funds must be obligated (legally committed) by September 30, 2022, and liquidated by September 30, 2023. The second round of pandemic funding, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act, in December 2020, provided an additional $10 billion in supplemental CCDF funding to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus. Utah received almost $109 million as part of this second round. Like the CARES Act, Utah has until September 30, 2022, to obligate these funds.
Utah recently sent a letter to the federal government outlining how it intends to invest the CCDF funds it received as part of CRSSA. According to this letter:
“[Utah] plans to utilize CRRSA funds to ensure maximum flexibility for subsidy access to ensure working families have the child care support necessary during the pandemic and as the economy recovers.”
Utah has the flexibility to allow its U.S. citizen children living with undocumented parents to benefit from the CCDF-funded child-care subsidy and should remove any barriers to access to this valuable support immediately. In fact, several local child advocacy groups have been asking Utah’s Office of Child Care to do just that—support some of our youngest and most vulnerable Utahn children.
This is an urgent matter that can not wait. These children live in many of the populations that have been hardest hit by this pandemic and need access to high-quality childcare right now. Particularly now that there is a third round of pandemic funding, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which is expected to provide Utah an additional $163, 429,739 in child-care assistance funds and $261,389,459 in child-care stabilization funds. Utah has a great opportunity to invest these funds wisely and not leave out vulnerable populations. Now is the time to do by right by our children.