Implement Louisiana Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP)

[hua7450]

Summary

Implements Louisiana's Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) — the state's CCDF child care subsidy, administered by the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE).

Closes #8623

Regulatory Authority

• Bulletin 139 — LAC 28:CLXV (compiled text, amended through LR 52:28, January 2026)
• Bulletin 139 — LAC 28:CLXV (archived December 2024, pre-repeal income list)
• LR 48:1269-1270 (May 20, 2022): 85% SMI income limit + current daily rates
• LR 51:524-529 (April 20, 2025): child support/alimony and adoption subsidies removed from countable income
• LR 47:573 (May 20, 2021): prior military center rates (effective Feb 1–May 19, 2022)
• LDOE annual sliding fee scales 2022–2026 (prior years via Wayback)
• LDOE Provider Updates (February 2025): new scale effective dates (plus March 2024 / March 2026 editions)
• Louisiana CCDF State Plan FFY 2025–2027 (approved 11/9/2024)

Coverage window

February 1, 2022 onward — when the 85% SMI limit, the current rate table, and the flat daily-copay sliding fee scale all took effect. The prior 65%-SMI/graduated-phase-out era (Feb 2021–Jan 2022) is not modeled.

Sliding fee scale as SMI shares

The published dollar charts are derived, not transcribed: every printed cell (5 bands × sizes 2–12 × 5 annual scales = 275 cells) reproduces exactly as round(share × SMI), where SMI is the HHS/ACF state median income by household size (capped at 12) for the federal fiscal year in effect.

• Band thresholds: $0 / $2 / $3 / $8 / $10 per day at 64% / 69% / 74% / 79% of SMI, with the 85% top band as the eligibility limit (2022 era: 65% / 70% / 75% / 80%) — encoded as a single bracket parameter on income share of SMI
• Vintage timing (la_ccap_smi): ACF publishes SMI each May/June → values take federal effect October 1 → LDOE adopts them the following February (LDOE Provider Updates memos: "as of February 1, 2024" / "February 3, 2025" / "February 1, 2026"; 2022 Wayback-bracketed). The lookup pins to the prior October 1 (the federal fiscal-year table entry) so the newest scale uses the published SMI rather than CBO uprating past the series end. January uses the prior year's scale.

Eligibility

Requirement	Source	How Modeled
Eligible child: under 13, or 13–17 if incapable of self-care	§503.A.2	age < 13, or (is_incapable_of_self_care | ssi>0) & age < 18; court-supervision route not tracked
Child citizen or qualified alien	§503.A.4	is_ccdf_immigration_eligible_child
Gross income ≤ 85% SMI by household size	§509.A.3	income ≤ 0.85 × la_ccap_smi
Activity: head + spouse each avg 20 hrs/wk work/training/education or full-time student	§509.A.5.a, §103 (TEMP)	weekly_hours_worked_before_lsr ≥ 20 | is_full_time_student | is_disabled, per head/spouse
15 hrs/wk for special-needs households	§509.A.5.d	Threshold drops when a special-needs child is present
Activity waiver: disabled adult; homeless family	§509.A.5.a–b	is_disabled; is_homeless
Categorical: FITAP+STEP; foster children	§505	is_tanf_enrolled (STEP approximated) | is_in_foster_care; bypasses income + activity tests
Assets ≤ $1,000,000	CCDF Plan §2.2.6	is_ccdf_asset_eligible (federal CCDF standard)

Special-needs child (la_ccap_special_needs_child)

§103 "Care for Children with Disabilities" — a child birth–17 with a current IEP or IFSP under IDEA, or receiving SSI — drives the special-needs rate, the copay waiver, and the 15-hr activity reduction. Modeled as is_disabled | has_individualized_education_program | has_developmental_delay (IFSP proxy) | ssi > 0, bounded to age < 18. This is distinct from the narrower §503.A.2 13–17 child test (is_incapable_of_self_care | ssi>0).

Countable income (§509.A.3)

• Earned (head + spouse only): employment, self-employment, farm operations — each source floored at zero, so a self-employment or farm loss cannot offset gross wages ("gross earnings")
• Unearned (all members): Social Security, SSI, VA benefits, retirement, disability benefits, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation
• Child support/alimony counted until April 20, 2025 (dated list parameter), then repealed by LR 51:529
• No deductions — gross income test

Benefit calculation

Per eligible child in care: max(min(childcare expense, daily rate × days) − daily copay × days, 0)

• Daily rates (§515.A): 5 provider types × 3 age groups (infant 0, toddler 1–2, regular 3+), +26% special-needs incentive; Military rates updated May 20, 2022
• Days (la_ccap_monthly_days): full-time care (≥30 hrs/wk) bills day units (childcare_days_per_week × 52/12, capped at 22/month, §103); part-time bills hours prorated against the 30-hour threshold. When both schedule inputs are reported, billing is the lesser of the two — a part-time schedule with attendance days must not bill full-day units
• Copay: per-child daily amount from the SMI-share bracket, billed × attendance days (see Modeling notes); waived (la_ccap_copay_waived) for families experiencing homelessness, children with disabilities, and categorical households (STEP/foster, who get 100% of the state max rate per §515.B)
• Reporting outputs: la_ccap_total_payment_rate (state max daily rate × paid days, summed over eligible children) and la_ccap_total_copay (daily copay × paid days) expose the gross authorization and family share alongside the net la_ccap subsidy

Not Modeled (by design)

What	Source	Why Excluded
90-day job-search waiver (once per 24 months)	§509.A.5.e	Time-limited certification state
Quality star bonus (0/0/11/16.5/23%)	§1109	Paid quarterly to providers; does not affect family copay or subsidy
EHS-CCP copay waiver	CCDF Plan §3.3.1.vii	Only Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership families are waived (generic Head Start is explicitly unchecked); no EHS-CCP-specific input exists
CNCS / college work-study / disaster-employment income exclusions	§509.A.3.a	Income subtypes not tracked
Adoption subsidy (countable pre-Apr 2025)	§509.A.3.b (pre-2025)	Not tracked as an input
Waitlist (Oct 2022+), immunization, HiRE registration, head-of-household citizenship verification (Jan 2026)	§513, §503, LR 52:28	Administrative/caseload states
Part-time hourly billing (max 129 hrs/month)	§103	Hourly rates unpublished; prorated daily-rate approximation (the 129-hr cap is algebraically redundant given the 30-hr proration)

Modeling notes

• Copay billed daily × attendance days: the FFY 2022–2024 CCDF Plan §3.1.3.g describes the copay "as a daily rate"; the FFY 2025–2027 plan §3.2.1.b treats the published monthly band as not varying by hours in care. We bill daily band × attendance days, which is exact for full-time care (the dominant case) and slightly under-charges part-time families. (Daily × 22 reproduces the published $44–$220 monthly bands; the 5.25%-of-income ceiling is embedded.)
• Copay waivers applied across all eras: the waiver footnote first appears on the 2025 scale; we assume the waivers apply throughout the coverage window
• Waiver is family-level: one qualifying child zeroes the unit's copay
• ±$1 band boundaries: at exact printed band-top dollars, the share formula can differ from the printed chart by $1 of monthly income for some sizes (the charts are rounded artifacts of the share rule)

Verification TODO

• 2023 sliding fee scale effective date — encoded 2023-02-01 per LDOE's annual pattern (verified in force by 3/27/2023); exact date unverified (2024/2025/2026 confirmed by LDOE memos, 2022 Wayback-bracketed)
• Military rates Feb–May 2022 era sourced to LR 47:573, but cannot be covered by tests (Jan/whole-year period restriction)
• CI passes

Files

policyengine_us/parameters/gov/states/la/ldoe/ccap/   (16 files)
policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/la/ldoe/ccap/    (18 files)
policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/la/ldoe/ccap/  (17 files)

Registered in gov/hhs/ccdf/child_care_subsidy_programs.yaml and programs.yaml (CCDF state implementations).

Test plan

• 108 YAML tests pass locally (unit tests for every formula variable incl. la_ccap_smi vintage pivot, la_ccap_special_needs_child routes, la_ccap_monthly_days, la_ccap_copay_waived, and the total payment-rate/copay outputs + integration scenarios covering era transitions, categorical bypass, negative self-employment income, asset limit, and out-of-state exclusion)
• CI passes

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 100.00%. Comparing base (7857608) to head (2c5733f).
⚠️ Report is 108 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

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