Child Care Bureau: Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF)

Child Care and Development Fund

Technical Bulletin #1

Please Note: Technical Bulletin Number One has been superseded by a second revision of Technical Bulletin Number One, published December 2004.

ACF-800 State-Level Data Standards (also in Word and PDF)
REVISED: November 24, 1998

This Technical Bulletin lists the data standards for the Child Care and Development Fund Annual Report. This Report, which is submitted by States and Territories to the Child Care Bureau, includes key State-level data required by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The data standards described here serve as the principal guideline to identify errors in State data. Data that fail to meet these data standards must be corrected by the submitting State or Territory.

The data standards for each item required in the Annual Report are found in the table on page 2. The table's five columns are:

I. Data Item #'s: 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 Child Care and Development Fund Annual Report form (see Appendix A.) 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 Child Care and Development Fund 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, "2.(B) through 2.(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 (number of digits or characters) of the data element. Any response that does not use all of the available digits should be right aligned and padded with zeroes. For example, for the first row of the table, item "1.(A): Families", the Field Size is 6. If the value was 45,000 families, it would be entered as 045000 so that it contained 6 digits.

III. Missing Data Standard: The third column indicates whether or not the data element is required to be reported. In this report, all the data elements are required.

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 in error.

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): Families" must be less than or equal to the value of element " 2.(A): Children". This makes sense because more families cannot be receiving child care services than children who are receiving child care services.

I. Data Item #s (See Appendix A)	II. Field Size	III. Missing Data Standard	IV. Out-of-Range Standard	V. Internal Consistency Standard
1.(A): Families	6	Always required	1-399,999	- less than or equal to 2.(A)
2.(A): Children	6	Always required	1-999,999	- greater than or equal to 1.(A) - equal to the sum of 2.(B) through 2.(L) - equal to the sum of 3.(A) and 4.(A)
2.(B) through 2.(L): Children by type of provider	6	Always required	0-999,999	- sum of 2.(B) through 2.(L) must be equal to 2.(A) - for each column (x=column) 2.(x) must be equal to the sum of 3.(x) and 4.(x)
3.(A): Payment method- grants or contracts	6	Always required	0-999,999	- equal to the sum of 3.(B) through 3.(L) - the sum of 3.(A) and 4.(A) must be equal to 2.(A)
3.(B) through 3.(L): Payment method- grants or contracts by type of provider	6	Always required	0-999,999	- sum of 3.(B) through 3.(L) must be equal to 3.(A) - for each column (x=column) the sum of 3.(x) and 4.(x) must be equal to 2.(x)
4.(A): Payment methods- certificates and/or cash	6	Always required	1-999,999	- equal to the sum of 4.(B) through 4.(L) - the sum of 3.(A) and 4.(A) must be equal to 2.(A) - greater than or equal to 5.(A)
4.(B) through 4.(L): Payment methods- certificates and/or cash by type of provider	6	Always required	0-999,999	- sum of 4.(B) through 4.(L) must be equal to 4.(A) - for each column (x=column) the sum of 3.(x) and 4.(x) must be equal to 2.(x) - 4.(x) must be greater than or equal to 5.(x)
5.(A): Payment method- cash	6	Always required	0-999,999	- equal to the sum of 5.(B) through 5.(L) - less than or equal to 4.(A)
5.(B) through 5.(L): Payment method- cash by type of provider	6	Always required	0-999,999	- sum of 5.(B) through 5.(L) must be equal to 5.(A) - for each column (x=column) 5.(x) must be less than or equal to 4.(x)
6.(A): Providers	6	Always required	1-999,999	- equal to the sum of 6.(B) through 6.(L)
6.(B) through 6.(L): Providers type	6	Always required	0-999,999	- sum of 6.(B) through 6.(L) must be equal to 6.(A)
7.(A): Consumer education	8	Always required	1-99,999,999	- no internal consistency standard
8 through 16: Consumer education methods	1	Always required	Y, N, NA: Y = Yes; N = No NA = Not Applicable (for element #8 only)	- at least one of elements 8 through 16 has a value of "Y"