ACF-800 State-Level Data Standards - Technical Bulletin 1r-v6

This Technical Bulletin lists the data standards for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Annual ACF-800 Report, including new requirements associated with the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Act of 2014 (Public Law113-186). The changes required by reauthorization include:

• the addition of element #2a — number of child fatalities (total and by care type),
• the discontinuation of element #10 — consumer education content topics,
• the change in #11 — methods of consumer education used, and
• the change in the list of non-CCDF funds in the Child Care budget pool.

All of these changes were required with the FFY 2016 report.

The ACF-800 Report, submitted by States and Territories to the Office of Child Care (OCC), includes key State-level data required by the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act, as amended. Along with the instructions for the ACF-800 Report, the data standards described here serve as the principal guidance to be used in developing the report and identifying possible errors in the data. The submitting State or Territory should correct data that fail to meet these data standards prior to submitting their report.

The data standards for each item required in the Annual Report are found in the table beginning on page 4. The table’s five columns are:

I.Data Element #: The first column lists each item that must be reported. Each item is referenced by the intersection of the applicable row and column in the CCDF Annual Report form. For example, the first item of the table, “1(A): Families,” represents the total number of families receiving child care services. It is located in row “1” and column “(A)” of the CCDF Annual Report form. Please note that in addition to individual data items, the first column may list a group of related items that have the same data standards. For example, in the third row of the table, “2(B-L): Children by type of provider,” represents the number of children receiving child care services by category or type of child care. All of these items are related and have the same data standards.

II.Field Size: The second column lists the size (maximum number of digits or characters) of the data element. For example, for the first row of the table, item “1(A): Families,” the Field Size is 6, indicating that this data element allows a maximum of six-digits.

III.Missing Data Standard: The third column indicates whether you are required to report this data element. Data elements #15 and #16 are optional. Requirements for some elements may depend upon the response to a related element.

IV.Out-of-Range Standard: The fourth column indicates the acceptable range of values for the data. All values must occur within this range. For example, for the second row of the table, element “2(A): Children,” the value must occur within the range of 1 to 999,999. Values less than 1 or greater than 999,999 are incorrect.

V.Internal Consistency Standard: The fifth column lists the standards for consistency among related elements. All of these standards are intuitively logical relationships. For example, the value of element “1(A): Number of Families” must be less than or equal to the value of element “2(A): Number of Children.” This makes sense because the number of families receiving child care services cannot be more than the number of children receiving child care services.

Additional Guidance for Elements #12 and #13 (Pooled Funds and the Pooling Factor)

The purpose of the pooling factor reported on the ACF-800 (element #13) is to enable OCC to report to Congress and the public the number of families and children served by CCDF funds alone (as opposed to those served with CCDF funds combined with other sources of funding).

Only families and children that are CCDF-eligible (that is, meet CCDF reason for care, child’s age, and income requirements) should be reported on the ACF-801 and ACF-800.

The pooling factor is defined as the proportion (percent) of all direct service costs for the families and children reported on the ACF-801 and ACF-800 that are paid for with CCDF funds (CCDF direct service costs ÷ All direct service costs). Depending upon how a grantee decides to expend its available child care funds, the monies used to pay for direct services may (or may not) reflect all sources of funds available in the child care budget.

After grantees submit their ACF-801 and ACF-800 reports, the counts of families and children served on the ACF-801 and ACF-800 are subsequently ’adjusted” by the Office of Child Care to reflect the CCDF population by multiplying the counts by the pooling factor.

GRANTEES THAT DO NOT POOL FUNDS:

All families and children served with CCDF funds should be reported on the ACF-801 and ACF-800 reports, and a pooling factor of 100 must be reported. For grantees that do not pool funds and include only CCDF-funded families and children on the ACF-801 and ACF-800, there is no adjustment to family and child counts (multiplying the number of families and children served by 100% returns the same counts).

GRANTEES THAT DO POOL FUNDS:

All families and children receiving child care services who meet CCDF-eligibility requirements should be reported on the ACF-801 and ACF-800. Families and children who do not meet the CCDF eligibility requirements should not be reported on the ACF-801 and ACF-800. The direct costs of child care services associated with families and children that do not meet CCDF eligibility requirements should never be included in the calculation of the pooling factor since those families and children should not be included on the ACF-801 and ACF-800.

For grantees that pool funds, the pooling factor will be less than 100, and should be calculated based on the direct services costs for only those children and families reported (i.e. those meeting CCDF eligibility requirements). The application of the pooling factor reduces the counts of families and children served based on the use of funds to pay for direct services. For example, if 100 families and 200 children were served, and a grantee reported a pooling factor of 80 (or 80%), then the adjusted counts of families and children served with only CCDF funds would be 80 and 160, respectively. Note that the Office of Child Care uses the pooling factor to adjust the counts after the grantee has reported; the grantee should not make this adjustment.

It is critical to remember that the ACF-801 and ACF-800 reports should be based on the same population, and that the pooling factor reflects the monies used to pay for the services for these families and children. In order to calculate an accurate pooling factor, the fiscal and program offices should coordinate efforts to ensure that the monies included in the calculation truly represent the direct services dollars for all and only those families and children reported on the two reports.

Appendix A contains Guidance and an Excel Pooling Factor Calculation Worksheet that grantees may find helpful for calculating an accurate pooling factor.