1. Coffee chat with child care
Analyst Hour / April 3, 2019

2. Coffee Chat with Child Care
Today’s Agenda
Changes Effective April 1, 2019
ERDC Payment of Registration Fees
Incentive Payments for Evening & Weekend Care
Certified Center Prepayment
Q & A

3. Registration Fees
Starting April 1, 2019, families receiving ERDC can request help paying for registration fees charged by their child care provider.
DHS can pay registration fees when all of the following criteria are met:
The fee is charged to all other families (including private pay),
The fee is necessary to obtain or maintain care (for example, initial registration fee, re-enrollment fees, or application fees), and
The fee is $150 or less per child (payments over $150 should be staffed with Child Care Policy for possible approval).

4. Registration Fees, Continued
Payments are made out of branch offices and are issued in the same way that JOBS support services are issued (however, these will be done via SPECIAL CASH PAY, not REVOLVING FUNDS).
The family can request assistance with the registration fee by contacting their Benefit Eligibility Worker or Family Coach, who verifies with the child care provider (over the phone, via , by website, etc.) and completes DHS 437 and obtains approval signature from a manager.
The 437 is processed by the branch Financial Clerk with pay reason 89, making the payment out to the Child Care Provider.
The provider must be in ‘A’ status on DPPM (approved with DHS) and must be one of the following provider types: RFM, CFM, or CNT.

5. Incentives for Alternative Hour Care
Starting in April 2019, the ERDC program has limited funding to provide incentive payments to DHS approved child care providers who are caring for children receiving ERDC during alternative hours.
Alternate hours means:
Care provided before 6am,
Care provided after 7pm, and/or
Care provided on weekends.
Many parents work hourly shifts or unpredictable work schedules, and struggle to find child care that works for their family. With incentives for child care providers, DHS hopes to encourage providers to open their doors during alternative hours to better support families.

6. Incentive Payment Continued
To qualify for an incentive payment, the child care provider must be approved with DHS, and caring for at least one child receiving ERDC during alternative hours. Payments are as follows:
$250 per month per child if they provide between 20 and 39 hours of care during alternative hours, or
$500 per month per child if they provide at least 40 hours of care during alternative hours.
Providers can request incentive payments for care beginning January 2019 by submitting the Incentive Payment Request Form to the Direct Pay Unit. Incentive payment request forms were mailed to 211, Child Care Resource & Referral organizations, and to providers directly; they can also be found on the DHS website under the ‘Providers’ tab.
Payments are made to the child care provider in a separate check by the Direct Pay Unit.

7. Certified Center Prepayment
Starting July 2018, DHS ran a pilot project allowing a limited number of certified centers (CNT provider type) to bill at the beginning of the month for care instead of at the end. This helps providers to stabilize their business costs and be able to provide care for low-income families.
Certified centers could bill for the hours they anticipated a child to be in care instead of the actual hours they provided care, and a parent signature was not required.
Starting April 2019, this is being expanded to include all certified centers (CNT) statewide.
Parents can still change providers mid-month without being penalized and overpayments will not be written if the parent was anticipated to be in care.
This applies only to families receiving ERDC at this time.

8. Questions?
Contact Child Care Policy at
Call Direct Pay Unit at Monday through Friday 8:30am-4:30pm