Michigan's Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) State Plan FY25-FY27
Michigan’s Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) State Plan FY 25-27 Appendix
Every three years, a State Plan must be completed for the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) dollars received to support low-income families with access to child care and improving the quality of child care.
CCDF helps to promote families' economic self-sufficiency by making child care more affordable and fostering healthy child development and school success by improving the overall quality of early learning and afterschool programs. It also makes significant advancements by defining health and safety requirements for child care providers, outlining family-friendly eligibility policies, and ensuring parents and the general public have transparent information about the child care choices available to them.
The plan was submitted to the Office of Child Care (Administration for Children and Families) on June 30, 2021 for review and approval. You may review the CCDF State Plan for Fiscal Year 2022-2024 by section.
Amendments to the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) State Plan for FY 2022-2024 have been approved and can be found below:
One requirement of receiving CCDF funding is to conduct a child care market rate survey. States use market rate surveys to establish child care payment rates high enough to increase access to high quality, affordable child care of all types for families using subsidy. Until 2014, states studied prices rather than costs in the market rate survey. However, it has been found that the costs to facilities and providers for providing affordable high-quality care are often greater than the prices charged to parents. As a result, states are now encouraged to find ways to study costs in addition to the market rates.
MDE contracted with Public Policy Associates, Incorporated (PPA) to conduct the 2023 Market Rate Survey (MRS) and analysis of the cost of providing high-quality child care. The full 2023 Market Rate Survey report is posted here for your review.
Please also see the 2023 MRS Summary document for your convenience.
The Child Care Mapping Project is an effort to provide transparency about the historical and current state of child care supply throughout the state of Michigan. This project supports the development of new data infrastructure that policymakers and program leaders can use to help ensure that families across the state of Michigan have adequate access to high-quality child care services.
The maps available through this project support work in local communities across the state as they work to expand child care opportunities through the local Great Start Collaboratives/Great Start Family Coalitions (GSC/GSFC), Economic Development Organizations (EDO), Regional Child Care Coalitions and other partners. The data provided helps identify progress being made.
The CDC Program Data Dashboard provides a high-level overview of ongoing case and provider data.
The QPR collects information from states and territories to describe investments to improve the quality of care available for children from birth to age 13. This report is an annual report required through Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 to describe how quality funds are expended, including the activities funded and the measures used to evaluate progress in improving the quality of care.
The ACF-696 is used to determine compliance with the spending requirements set forth in 45 CFR Part 98, Subpart F. States and territories must meet various CCDF spending requirements, which are calculated after all funds have been expended or at the end of the liquidation period.
State and territory CCDF lead agencies must spend at least 9 percent of the aggregated CCDF expenditures on quality improvement activities. State and territory CCDF lead agencies must spend at least 3 percent of the aggregated CCDF expenditures on quality improvement activities for infants and toddlers (in addition to the quality spending requirement).
State and territory lead agencies may not spend more than 5 percent of their aggregated CCDF expenditures on administrative activities.
For CCDF Mandatory and Matching funding, states must expend no less than 70 percent of the aggregate amount of CCDF Mandatory and the federal and state share of CCDF Matching funds on direct services to meet the child care needs of TANF families, families transitioning off TANF, or families at risk of becoming TANF recipients. Territories must expend not less than 70 percent of CCDF Mandatory funds to provide direct services to meet the child care needs of TANF families, families transitioning off TANF, or families at risk of becoming TANF recipients.
State and territory lead agencies must also expend a percentage of CCDF Discretionary funds to provide direct services to meet the child care needs of children. After reserving the minimum 9 percent quality expenditure requirement, the 3 percent Infant/Toddler quality expenditure requirement, and the amounts expended by the lead agency for administrative costs, 70 percent of the remaining CCDF Discretionary expenditures must be spent on providing direct services. Additional information regarding this calculation is provided in the ACF-696 Instructions (attachment C).
State and Territory CCDF lead agencies must submit separate quarterly reports for each grant year (the federal fiscal year in which CCDF funds were awarded) until all funds are expended or the liquidation period expires, whichever is sooner. Therefore, a state and territory CCDF lead agency may be submitting multiple, separate ACF-696 reports at the end of each quarter.
Fiscal Year (FY) 24
Fiscal Year (FY) 25
In late 2015 and early 2016, the Office of Great Start partnered with Public Sector Consultants to gather input on the state of child care in Michigan.
The final report Building a Better Child Care System: What Michigan Can Do to Help More Parents and Children Access Quality Care, is available and contains results and recommendations for improving access to quality child care.
Across Michigan, families rely on child care providers to offer high-quality early learning and care for their children while they work and go to school. The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) commissioned Public Sector Consultants (PSC) to conduct a study to better understand how the child care market has changed over time - and whether a decline in licensed providers was related to a decline in the number of children in a community.
