Summary

Implements Alaska Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), the state's CCDF-funded child care subsidy program administered as Parents Achieving Self-Sufficiency (PASS) under the Alaska Department of Health, Division of Public Assistance, Child Care Program Office.

This PR covers PASS III (general subsidy population) and PASS II (12-month transitional post-ATAP), with the full provider rate matrix and Alaska IN! special-needs supplement.

Closes #8319

Regulatory Authority

• CCAP Policies and Procedures Manual (rev. Jan 2023) — 706 pages; primary operational manual for PASS I–IV
• Family Income & Contribution Schedule (FICS), rev. Feb 21, 2022 — current SMI thresholds + sliding-scale copay (2-page PDF, no page anchor)
• Provider Rate Schedule, rev. Dec 1, 2021 — full rate matrix by region × age group × provider type × care unit
• Alaska Statutes AS 47.25.001 – .095 (Day Care Assistance and Child Care Grants)
• Alaska Administrative Code 7 AAC 41:
  • 7 AAC 41.012 — PASS I–IV category structure
  • 7 AAC 41.060 — Alaska IN! special-needs supplemental rate
  • 7 AAC 41.300 — eligible family / residency / asset limit
  • 7 AAC 41.310 — eligible activities
  • 7 AAC 41.335 — family income contribution
  • 7 AAC 41.350 — eligible child
  • 7 AAC 41.360 — parent exceptions

Program Overview

• Administration: State-administered; CCDF/CCDBG-funded
• Income limit: 85% Alaska State Median Income (NOT FPG; FPG is used only for self-employment proration per Manual §4080-2 J 4)
• Categories implemented: PASS II (post-ATAP transitional) + PASS III (general subsidy)
• Categories excluded: PASS I (ATAP-bundled, covered by PASS III for income-eligible families); PASS IV (OCS protective services, custody status not tracked)
• Provider rate matrix: 29 rate regions × 4 age groups × 4 provider types × 4 care units (~1,500 cells)
• Family copay: sliding 0–9% of monthly income, 10 brackets keyed to % SMI band

Eligibility

Rate Region (refactored)

• ak_ccap_rate_region reuses the existing County enum directly instead of maintaining a parallel rate-region enum. The variable is keyed on county_str and returns a County value.
• The 2019 Valdez-Cordova split is handled by collapsing COPPER_RIVER_CENSUS_AREA_AK into CHUGACH_CENSUS_AREA_AK, so both successors share the single Valdez-Cordova rate column still published on the Provider Rate Schedule.
• Households with missing/unknown county data fall back to ANCHORAGE_MUNICIPALITY_AK so downstream rate lookups always hit a valid AK borough key.
• Rate parameter YAMLs (licensed_center, licensed_group_home, licensed_home, approved_relative_in_home) key region breakdowns on full County names (e.g., ANCHORAGE_MUNICIPALITY_AK).

Income & Copay Calculation

• 85% AK SMI threshold — ak_ccap_smi_threshold multiplies HHS SMI by family size by income/smi_rate.yaml (0.85). HHS SMI matches the FICS table at every AK family size to within rounding.
• Sliding-scale copay (FICS): 10 brackets covering 0–9% of countable monthly income, keyed to the family's % SMI band. Cap = 9%. ak_ccap_copay (SPMUnit/MONTH) applies once at the family level (Manual §4080).
• PASS I copay waiver: ak_ccap_copay checks is_tanf_enrolled (rather than ak_atap > 0) to break the circular dependency ak_ccap_copay → ak_atap → childcare_expenses → ak_ccap. ATAP is Alaska's TANF, so the family-level TANF enrollment flag is the right semantic match for the PASS I waiver under Manual §4040-3 D.
• Counted earned income: employment_income, self_employment_income (adults only — child earned income excluded per Manual §4080-1 PDF p.203)
• Counted unearned income: child support received, alimony, Social Security, SSI, unemployment, veterans benefits, rental, pension, workers' compensation, interest, dividends, capital gains, strike benefits (Manual §4080-3 PDF p.231)
• Excluded income: Alaska PFD, federal tax refunds, EITC, federal non-cash benefits (SNAP/WIC/Medicaid/Medicare), disaster relief, TA Diversion, in-kind support (Manual §4080-5 PDF p.248) — these variables are not in the adds lists, so they flow around CCAP countable income naturally
• Child support paid deduction (Manual §4080; 7 AAC 41.335): ak_ccap_child_support_paid_deduction subtracts legally-obligated payments to non-CCAP family members

Benefit Calculation

• Per-child benefit (ak_ccap_benefit_per_child, Person/MONTH):
  min(provider_charged_rate, state_max_provider_rate) − family_copay_share + special_needs_supplement
• State max provider rate (ak_ccap_max_provider_rate_per_child): looked up from rates/{provider_type}.yaml indexed by [care_unit][region][age_group]. Day-based schedules (FT_DAY/PT_DAY) multiply the per-day rate by childcare_attending_days_per_month; month-based schedules (FT_MONTH/PT_MONTH) use the flat monthly rate.
• Family copay share: family copay divided by number of children in care (ak_ccap_dependents_in_care); applied once total per family (Manual §4080)
• Special-needs supplement (7 AAC 41.060(b), Alaska IN!): up to a 100% top-up of the authorized provider rate for disabled children under 13 — i.e., the total paid to the provider can be at most 2× the authorized rate. ak_ccap_special_needs_supplement = (supplement_multiplier − 1) × authorized_rate with supplement_multiplier = 2, so the maximum supplement equals the authorized rate (= the 100% cap in 7 AAC 41.060(b)). The supplement is added OUTSIDE the min(charge, max_rate) cap per regulation wording ("in addition to").
• Anchorage rate exception (REQ-034, Rate Schedule p.1): no licensed group homes exist in Municipality of Anchorage; parameter file stores 0 for the ANCHORAGE_MUNICIPALITY_AK column under licensed_group_home.
• Annual aggregator: ak_child_care_subsidies (SPMUnit/YEAR) sums the 12 monthly ak_ccap values; registered in gov.hhs.ccdf.child_care_subsidy_programs to feed the federal child_care_subsidies rollup.

Files Added/Changed

• Parameters: policyengine_us/parameters/gov/states/ak/dpa/ccap/ (age_threshold, age_group, copay, eligibility, income/countable_income, rates, special_needs) + 1 line in gov/hhs/ccdf/child_care_subsidy_programs.yaml. All parameter start dates set to 2022-01-01.
• Variables: Python files under policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/ak/dpa/ccap/ (benefit, copay, eligibility, income, rates). The interim ak_ccap_smi_band was inlined into ak_ccap_copay_rate. PASS II vs PASS III are not separate code branches — a single ak_ccap_eligible covers both categories (see Eligibility table above).
• Tests: 20 YAML files in policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/ak/dpa/ccap/ + 2 in ATAP common; 136 tests, all passing.
• Changelog: changelog.d/ak-ccap.added.md

Test Realism

All tests use period 2022-01 (matching parameter effective dates). Test scenarios reflect real-life Alaska families:

• Realistic AK childcare expense levels ($800–$3,000/mo by scenario) instead of an artificial $10,000/mo placeholder
• Realistic income levels for AK (single parent at $24K/yr, two-parent at $36K/yr, etc.)
• Real family compositions (preschoolers, school-age, mixed-status siblings, special-needs kids, ATAP-enrolled families)
• Real county/provider combinations (Anchorage center, Mat-Su licensed home, Fairbanks mixed, Bethel approved relative, Aleutians group home)
• Boundary tests anchored to the actual HHS SMI values used by the formula
• Special-needs tests set ssi: 0 explicitly to isolate SN supplement logic from SSI deeming math
• TANF tests set is_tanf_enrolled: true explicitly (matches the PASS I waiver condition the code now uses)

Requirements Coverage

• 31 in-scope requirements, all covered with parameters/variables/tests
• 7 requirements documented as NOT-MODELED:
  • REQ-017 (catastrophic medical/dental deduction — specialized expense category not tracked)
  • REQ-018 (educational expense deduction — educational income not separately tracked from other income; net zero effect on countable income since both income and deduction would be omitted)
  • REQ-024 (job search — episodic activity state not simulated)
  • REQ-027 (jury duty — episodic substitute)
  • REQ-028 (CC24 incapacity status — distinct from is_disabled, not tracked)
  • REQ-037 (PASS IV / OCS protective services — custody status not tracked)
  • REQ-038 (PASS I / ATAP-bundled — covered by PASS III for income-eligible families)

Not Modeled (by design)

Historical Notes

• Provider Rate Schedule effective Dec 1, 2021 — all CCAP parameters start 2022-01-01 to cleanly cover the schedule's first calendar year onward
• FICS effective Feb 21, 2022 — current revision; earlier 2019 FICS not backdated in this PR
• 7 AAC 41.012 (PASS structure) originally effective June 23, 2006; amended January 5, 2017

Test Plan

• 136 unit + integration tests pass (CCAP + ATAP common)
• make format clean
• CI passes