ACF-700 Reporting Instructions

Contents of the CCDF Annual Report

Instructions for Completing Lines 1-7 on Page 1 of the ACF-700

Definitions Used in ACF-700

Instructions for Completing Page 2 of the ACF-700

Instructions for the Supplemental Narrative Report

Form ACF-700

Who must report

All Tribal Lead Agencies must submit an Annual Report (ACF-700).

Reporting burden

Comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this information collection, including suggestions for reducing this burden, should be sent to: the Child Care Bureau, Switzer Building, Room 2046, 330 C St., SW, Washington, DC 20201; and to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC.  

Background:
page 1 of the
ACF-700

In Column A, count each child or family assisted once, regardless of the number of days care was provided, and even if the child or family has exited and re-entered the program. However, a child may be counted in more than one PROVIDER column (Columns B-L) if the child receives care from more than one provider type for different portions of the typical day, week, or month.

EXAMPLE 1: A family leaves the program in 3/99 but is reinstated in 8/99. The family is counted 1 time on line 1.

EXAMPLE 2: A child receives care in a licensed center in the morning and in a regulated family day care home in the afternoon. The child is counted in both column (L) and column (J) in lines 2b, 3, 5 - 6 on page 1.

• when the payment for the service was made, or
  
• which fiscal year's funds paid for the service.

  EXAMPLE: A child received care in 8/99 only. The Tribal Lead Agency paid
  for that care in 10/99. Count the child on page 1 because the
  service was received during the report period.

EXAMPLE 1: A Tribal Lead Agency provides child care vouchers/certificates to 100 families to receive child care services at a program of their choice. Enter 100 families on line 1. Enter the number of children receiving child care through a certificate in each type in each type of setting on line 2b

The total unduplicated number of children should be reported in column (A) line 2b.

EXAMPLE 2: A Tribal Lead Agency contracts with a center for 100 full-time
slots for 1999. Count 100 children in the total reported on line 2.

Do not count children or families who only generally benefited from services:

• a grant or contract to establish, expand, or conduct before- and after- school care and early childhood development programs, (i.e., not specific slots); or
• an expansion of quality activities funded under the CCDF (or Child Care Development Block Grant).

  EXAMPLE 3: A Tribal Lead Agency contracts with a resource and referral agency to provide professional staff development training at a center with 78 children. The Tribal Lead Agency does not contract for slots with the center and no children there receive CCDF (or Child Care Development Block Grant) certificates. Do not count the children because they did not receive direct child care services from the CCDF funds expended.

When a child or family leaves the program before the end of the report period, report the child or family data as of the date of exit from the program. (Enter data on all lines, as appropriate)

EXAMPLE 1: A family leaves the program in 4/99. Their 3 year old child was in a licensed center in that month. Count the family in line 1, and the child in line 2 [Column (A) and (L)] and line 3d.

When a child or family changes the category of provider or reason for needing care during the report period, report the category or reason as of the end of the report period (or date of exit from the program).

EXAMPLE 2: A child receives care in a family day care home from 9/98 to 3/99; uses an in-home provider during 4/99 and a center from 5/99 through 10/99. Count (or include) the child only in column (H) of lines 2, 3, 5 and 6.

EXAMPLE 3: A child received care in 10/98 because of her parents' employment. From 11/98 through 9/99 child care was provided because the child was in protective services. Count the child in line 4c only.

• have a separate "group home" category [columns (F) (G) and (K)]
  
• serve children 13 years and older (line 3i)
  
• serve children from families above a certain income level (line 7)
  
• are not required to operate a certificate program and specific types of care are not operated by the tribe (exempt tribal Lead Agencies only) [lines 2b, 3a-I, 5 6a-b]

When one of these situations applies use "NA." Do not use "0", "--"or leave blanks in these situations. However, If a service is offered--but not used--show "0."

EXAMPLE: A Tribe limits eligibility to families up to the poverty level.
On page 1 show "NA" on lines 7b, 7c, and 7d.

Use a "-" (dash) to indicate that the data requested apply to a Tribal Lead Agency's program, but are not available when the report is completed.

When complete data are not available the Tribal Lead Agency should explain in a footnote or attachment when the missing data will be submitted.

EXAMPLE: At the time the report must be submitted data are not available
for every age group on line 3. The Tribal Lead Agency has data showing
the number of children served who are over or under age 13. The Tribal Lead
Agency completes lines 3a through 3g with "-", lines 3h and 3i show the data that are available. The Tribal Lead Agency submits the data for lines 3a through 3g when they become available.

EXAMPLE: No parents selected in-home care during this report period. The
Tribal Lead Agency shows "0" in columns (B), (C) and (I) on page 1.

Reminder: Where a Tribal Lead Agency does not serve certain children
as explained above show "NA".

Line 5 asks for the average number of hours of care per child per month. One method of calculating the average number of hours per month is to average the actual number of hours of care used by each child in each of the months in which services are provided or available.

Tribal Lead Agencies should describe in a footnote how they calculated the average number of hours.

Some Tribal Lead Agencies do not pay for (or keep records by) the actual number of hours of service per child. Rather, they reimburse by "full" or "part" days of service (or other increments). Such Tribal Lead Agencies can still calculate the average number of hours of child care per child per month by multiplying the average number of "full" and "part" days by the maximum number of hours of service that these definitions represent. For example, a Tribal Lead Agency that defines "part" day as 4 hours per day or fewer, the Tribal Lead Agency would multiply the number of "part" days provided per month by four. "Full days" can be similarly converted.

Tribal Lead agencies should use the same method for calculating the average monthly amount paid for child care services (i.e., CCDF subsidy on line 6a and parent copayment on 6b) as used to calculate the average number of hours of care as described above.

Some Tribal Lead Agencies do not pay for (or keep records by) the month. Rather, they reimburse by "full" or "part" days of care (or other increments). Such Tribal Lead Agencies can still calculate the average monthly amount paid for child care per child. Multiply the number of full or part time days times 22 to calculate the monthly rate.

DEFINITIONS FOR FORM ACF-700

Provider legally regulated or licensed by Tribe or State designated licensing agent.

Show only FY 1996 Child Care Development Block Grant GRANT expenditures made during the report period 10/1/98 through 9/30/99 regardless of when the service was provided.

EXAMPLE 1: Service is rendered in 9/98, but paid for in 2/99 using FFY 1996 Child Care Development Block Grant funds. Include the expenditure on page 2 because the expenditure falls within the reporting period. CAUTION: The child would not be counted on page 1, however, because the service was provided before the report period (see "When the service was provided...." on page 2 on this instruction).

NOTE: Tribal requirements may impact when an expenditure is officially "made."

Column (A) reports final FFY 1996 expenditures made during the report period 10/1/98 through 9/30/99. Column (A) should not reflect cumulative (i.e., multi-year) expenditures -- only FFY 1996 expenditures that were made during the report period 10/1/98 through 9/30/99.

EXAMPLE 1: In 6/99 the Tribal Lead Agency paid $10,000 as the last part of a 3 year $30,000 training contract with FFY 1996 funds. Only $10,000, the amount expended during the reporting period, is shown on line 4d, column (A). (Note: The other $20,000 of FFY 1996 funds should have been reported previously on the ACF-700s submitted for FFY 1997 and FFY 1998.)

EXAMPLE 2: With FFY 1996 funds a Tribal Lead Agency prepays $100,000 rent for FFY 2000 on 9/30/99. The $100,000 would be included in line 2a, column (A). (Reminder: Even though the service has not yet been furnished the expenditure occurred during the report period-- see above.)

Complete all rows and columns. If no funds were expended in a category listed in lines 1 through 4 enter "$0". Do not use "NA", "-" or leave blanks on page 2.

EXAMPLE 1: A Tribal Lead Agency spent no funds on monitoring activities. Rows 2f and 4c on page 2 show "$0".

Round all expenditures to the nearest dollar -- omit cents.

The sum of items in column (A) on page 2 should be equal to or less than the amount shown in the FFY 1996 Child Care Development Block Grant GRANT $___ line at the top of page 2. The sum of items in column (A) on page 2 cannot exceed the amount of that year's grant.

For a non-exempt Tribal Lead Agency that has expended its entire FY 1996 Child Care Development Block Grant allotment in a single fiscal year:

• line 1d will equal at least 63.75% of that year's grant (shown in the FFY 1996 Child Care Development Block Grant GRANT $____ line at the top of the page) but will be not more than 75% of that year's total grant.
• line 2j must be no more than 11.25% of that year's total grant.
• line 3e must be equal to at least 18.75% -- but no more than 20% -- of that year's total grant.
• line 4f must be equal to at least 5% -- but no more than 6.25% -- of that year's total grant.
• the sum of items 1d and 2j must total 75% of that year's total grant.
• the sum of items 3e and 4f must total 25% of that year's total grant.

These percentages do not apply to exempt Tribal Lead Agencies.

The regulations require Tribal Lead Agencies to report other information, in addition to the data collected by Form ACF-700. This information will be included in the Secretary's report to Congress, as appropriate, and will be shared with other Tribal Lead Agencies to inform them of CCDF or Child Care Development Block Grant-funded activities in other tribal programs.

There is no required format for the supplemental narrative report. Tribal Lead Agencies are encouraged to include any related materials to accompany the narrative, including brochures, pamphlets or news articles.

There are 2 parts to the supplemental narrative:

• descriptions of the results of specific CCDF or Child Care Development Block Grant-funded activities, and
• other information based on "available data".

In the supplemental narrative all Tribal Lead Agencies should describe:

• any reductions in the level of child care standards and the rationale for this reduction (if applicable)
• the extent to which the affordability and availability of child care services has increased, and
• efforts to improve the quality of child care

To the extent that the Tribal Lead Agency has reasonably "available data", the following should also be included in the supplemental narrative report:

• The type and number of child care programs, child care providers, caregivers, and support personnel located in the area served by the Tribal Lead Agency.
• Information on salaries and other compensation paid to full- and part-time staff who provide child care services.
• A description of unmet child care needs. For example cite the number of eligible children on a waiting list as of 9/30/99, if applicable. A Tribal Lead Agency may also cite the unmet need by providing the number of months child care services are not available due to a lack of CCDF funds. Do not count months where services are reduced. Only count months in which no CCDF services are provided.
• A description of collaborative activities which promote comprehensive services, encourage increased quality, business participation, and coordination with State or Tribal agencies responsible for health, education, employment services or workforce development and the State or Tribal agencies responsible for providing Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) (or tribal agency if the tribe is operating its own TANF program.)

NOTE: Information in this section is not limited to CCDF programs, services or activities, but should include all child care available on the Tribal Lead Agency's reservation or tribal service area.