RD70 - Annual Report on Child Care Subsidy Sliding Fee Scale - December 2014


Executive Summary:
Item 335 (I) of the 2014 Appropriations Act (Act) provides that specified general and federal funds will support subsidized child care assistance in Virginia. It requires that subsidized child care assistance be administered on a sliding scale basis to income eligible families.

The Act requires the State Board of Social Services to establish rules and regulations for the sliding fee scale and eligibility criteria for subsidized child care assistance. These sliding fee scale regulations and eligibility criteria are required to account for variations in the local cost of living index by metropolitan statistical areas.

The federal poverty guidelines are adjusted annually; therefore, comparable annual adjustments are made to the sliding fee scale for income eligibility thresholds. Effective October 1, 2013, the rules for the income eligibility scale were adjusted to reflect these changes in the federal poverty guidelines for family size. Appendix B contains the adjusted scale for income eligibility thresholds. Appendix C contains charts defining the metropolitan statistical area groupings.