Background and Summary, Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) FY 2019 Expenditure Data

Publication Date: January 7, 2021

Total Expenditures

  • In Fiscal Year1 (FY) 2019, total spending (from all grant years) increased from $9.2 billion in FY 2018 to $10.3 billion in FY 20192.
  • Total FY 2019 CCDF expenditures compared to FY 2018 increased by about $1 billion. Spending increased in all categories including direct services, quality activities, infant and toddler quality activities, administrative activities, and non-direct services. Other factors contributing to changes in expenditures include:
    • In Grant Year (GY) 2018, states and territories received a $2.37 billion increase in Discretionary funds over GY 2017 Discretionary funds, which were released to states in the third quarter (May) of FY 2018. Due to the time states needed to pass state legislation and upgrade systems with the increased funds, significant increases in spending did not begin to materialize until FY 2019; and
    • States transferred less TANF money to CCDF in FY 2019, approximately $1.3 billion compared to $1.5 billion in FY 2018.
  • In FY 2019, approximately $46 million in federal Matching funds were not drawn down and thus reallocated to other states in FY 2020: Idaho released $7 million; Kansas released $3.9 million; Pennsylvania released $1.5 million; and Tennessee released $33.8 million. This is about $4 million more than the amount of federal Matching funds that was not drawn down in FY 2018.
  • In FY 2019, child care expenditures of TANF Direct funds were $1.4 billion, about $100 million less than in FY 2018.  This information is reported on the ACF 196 and is not included in the CCDF Expenditure Data tables.
Direct Services: $7,701 (75%), Quality Activities: $1, 212 (12%), Non-Direct Services: $673 (7%), Infant/Toddler: $374 (4%), and Admin: $330 (3%)

Categorical Expenditures3

  • Spending on quality activities, not including infant and toddler quality spending, increased to about  $1.2 billion in FY 2019 (12% of total spending). In FY 2018, quality spending was $1.1 billion (12% of total spending). States and territories were required to spend 7% of funds on quality in GY 2017 and 8% of funds on quality in GY 2018 and GY 2019.
  • In FY 2019, states spent $374 million (4% of total spending) on activities to improve supply and quality of care for infants and toddlers, an increase from the $324 million spent in FY 2018. States and territories are required to spend 3% on quality activities for infants and toddlers.
  • In FY 2019, $7.7 billion was spent on direct services (75% of total spending). In FY 2018, direct services spending was $6.9 billion (75% of total spending).
  • Spending on administrative activities increased from $302 million (3% of total spending) in FY 2018 to $330 million (3% of total spending) in FY 2019. States may not spend more than 5% of funds on administrative activities.
  • Non-direct services ($673 million or 7%) activities increased by $111 million in FY 2019.

GY 2017 Award Summary4

  • As of September 30, 2019, cumulative GY 2017 expenditures totaled approximately $9 billion. The breakdown of expenditures is:
  • 74% ($6.1 billion) on direct services;
  • 12% ($981 million) on quality activities;
  • 7% ($549 million) on non-direct services;
  • 4% ($295 million) on infant and toddler quality activities; and
  • 3% ($263 million) on administrative activities.
Direct Services: $6057 (74%), Infant/Toddler: $295 (4%), Admin: $263 (3%), Non-Direct Services: $549, and Quality Activities $981 (12%)

1 Fiscal Year (FY) refers to the period from October 1 through September 30, during which states and territories may spend funds awarded in the current and prior years. Grant Year (GY) refers to the year the funds were awarded, although states and territories may liquidate some CCDF funding streams in later fiscal years

2 These amounts include approximately $14 million in excess state-only expenditures reported as CCDF Match and MOE above the amounts required to drawdown the full CCDF grant award.

3 In prior years, states were congressionally mandated to target discretionary funds towards quality expansion, infants and toddlers, and resource and referral and school age care. Targeted discretionary spending is no longer required, though the ACF-696 allowed reporting on all three of these categories for GY 2019, GY 2018, and GY 2017. For the purposes of this summary, quality expansion and resource and referral and school age care targeted discretionary spending were collapsed into Quality Activities and spending on infant and toddler discretionary targeted funds were collapsed into Infant and Toddler Quality Activities.

4 GY 2017 is the most recent grant award that has been completely spent down.