Implement Alabama Child Care Subsidy Program (CCSP)

[hua7450]

Summary

Implements Alabama Child Care Subsidy Program (CCSP) in PolicyEngine.

Closes #8321

Regulatory Authority

• CCDF State Plan FFY 2025-2027 — primary regulatory source (301 pp.)
• Child Care Fact Sheet (Jan 2024) — copay & income table (single page)
• Provider Rate Chart — reimbursement rates by region/type/age/STAR
• 2024 Cost of Child Care Study — market rate methodology (79 pp.)

Program Overview

• Official name: Alabama Child Care Subsidy Program (CCSP). Informally "CCAP".
• Agency: AL DHR / Child Care Services Division / Office of Child Care Subsidy
• Operational delivery: 4 regional Child Care Management Agencies (CMAs) covering 9 service regions
• Funding: CCDF (federal block grant) + state matching
• Effective date for parameters: 2024-01-01

Eligibility

Requirement	Source	How Modeled
Child under 13 (or 19 if disabled)	State Plan §2.2.1 (p. 20)	al_ccsp_eligible_child
Initial income ≤ 180% FPL	State Plan §2.2.4 (p. 24)	al_ccsp_income_eligible with al_ccsp_enrolled = False
Continuing income ≤ 200% FPL	State Plan §2.2.4 (p. 39)	al_ccsp_income_eligible with al_ccsp_enrolled = True
Hard cap ≤ 85% SMI	45 CFR 98.20 + State Plan §2.5.2 (pp. 24, 35-39)	al_ccsp_income_eligible
Asset limit ≤ $1,000,000	State Plan §2.2.6 (p. 27)	is_ccdf_asset_eligible (federal CCDF helper, reused)
Activity ≥ 15 hrs/week	State Plan §2.2.2 (pp. 21-23)	al_ccsp_activity_eligible
Immigration	45 CFR 98	is_ccdf_immigration_eligible_child (federal CCDF helper, reused)
Protective services waiver (income & activity)	State Plan §2.2.2(f) (p. 23)	al_ccsp_protective_services via is_in_foster_care, is_homeless
Alabama residency	State Plan §2.2 (p. 20)	defined_for = StateCode.AL

Family unit ≈ SPMUnit (PE's SPMUnit may include unrelated cohabitants that AL excludes; documented as known approximation).

Income Calculation

• Gross monthly income — no deductions ("Regulations allow for no deductions to gross income" — Fact Sheet)
• Counted sources: see income/countable_income/sources.yaml (employment, self-employment, farm operations, SS, pensions, unemployment, workers' comp, TANF, SSI, state supplement, interest, dividends, alimony, veterans' benefits)
• Excluded: child support received, spousal support received, room rent
• Weekly→monthly multiplier: 4.333 (regulatory literal per Fact Sheet, NOT WEEKS_IN_YEAR/MONTHS_IN_YEAR — per CT C4K precedent)

Family Fee (Copay)

Weekly per-child fee, sliding scale by FPL band. Effective Jan 1, 2024.

Initial tier (9 bands, 0-180% FPL):

FPL band	Fee/week/child
≤100%	$0
101-110%	$18
111-120%	$21
121-130%	$24
131-140%	$27
141-150%	$30
151-160%	$33
161-170%	$36
171-180%	$39

Continuing tier (181-200% FPL):

FPL band	Fee/week/child
181-190%	$42
191-200%	$45

Copay waivers (REQ-021/022/023/024):

• ≤100% FPL (encoded in fee table $0 band)
• Family with disabled child (§3.3.1(iv))
• Head Start / EHS enrollment (§3.3.1(v))
• Foster care / protective services (§3.3.1(vi))

NOT waived: homeless families (homelessness only waives the eligibility test via the protective-services pathway, not the copay — per §2.2.2(f) and §3.3.1(iii)).

Provider Rates

486-cell rate matrix transcribed verbatim from Provider Rate Chart:

• Provider types: Center, GFDC (Group Family Day Care), FDC (Family Day Care), INFORMAL (flat $40/wk cap)
• Regions: 9 (Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Mobile, Ft Payne, Birmingham, Talladega, Montgomery, Dothan, Opelika)
• Age categories: Infant/Toddler (<36mo), Preschool (36-60mo), School-Age (≥60mo)
• Quality tiers: Base + STAR 1-5 (~2% over Base per STAR; transcribed cell-by-cell, NOT derived — published rates show rounding inconsistencies)
• Part-time (≤25 hrs/wk): ½ × full-time rate
• County → region lookup masked by state_code_str == "AL" (per WA-PTE lesson) to prevent non-AL households crashing on missing keys

Benefit Calculation

Per-child weekly subsidy = max(0, min(provider charge, max weekly rate) − per-child copay).

Per-child monthly subsidy = weekly subsidy × 4.333 × al_ccsp_eligible_child.

Family-level copay split equally across eligible children. SPMUnit benefit = sum of per-child monthly subsidies.

Files Added

policyengine_us/parameters/gov/states/al/dhr/ccsp/
  age_category/months.yaml
  copay/initial_fee_by_fpl.yaml
  copay/continuing_fee_by_fpl.yaml
  eligibility/{child_age_limit, disabled_child_age_limit, income_limit_fpl_initial,
               income_limit_fpl_continuing, income_limit_smi_cap, activity_hours_minimum}.yaml
  income/countable_income/sources.yaml
  income/weeks_to_months.yaml
  rates/{maximum_weekly_full_time, part_time_multiplier, full_time_hours_threshold,
         informal_weekly_cap}.yaml
  region/counties.yaml

policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/al/dhr/ccsp/
  al_ccsp.py
  al_ccsp_age_category.py
  al_ccsp_countable_income.py
  al_ccsp_enrolled.py
  al_ccsp_provider_type.py
  al_ccsp_quality_tier.py
  al_ccsp_region.py
  al_child_care_subsidies.py
  copay/{al_ccsp_copay, al_ccsp_weekly_copay_per_child}.py
  eligibility/{al_ccsp_activity_eligible, al_ccsp_eligible, al_ccsp_eligible_child,
               al_ccsp_income_eligible, al_ccsp_protective_services}.py
  payment/al_ccsp_maximum_weekly_rate.py

policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/al/dhr/ccsp/
  (14 YAML files, 103 test cases)

Modified:
- policyengine_us/programs.yaml (registered AL CCSP under CCDF state_implementations)
- policyengine_us/parameters/gov/hhs/ccdf/child_care_subsidy_programs.yaml (added al_child_care_subsidies)
- changelog.d/al-ccap.added.md

Coverage

28 in-scope requirements / 28 implemented (100%). 9 NOT-MODELED items documented as known limitations.

Not Modeled

• 7% federal copay cap (45 CFR 98.45) — State Plan §3.1.1 acknowledges family total may exceed 7%; fee table is source of truth
• EHS-CCP as distinct from Head Start (proxied via is_enrolled_in_head_start)
• TANF-Other Relative and Special Needs protective-service eligibility categories
• Granular job-training / GED / internship enrollment status
• Irregular / temporary income exclusion (§2.2.5)
• McKinney-Vento homelessness flag (uses is_homeless Household variable instead)
• CMA discretion / outreach / intake operations (§2.4, §2.5.3)
• Job-search-alone activity
• Priority / waitlist categories (§2.3)
• 12-month continuity / mid-period income changes (§2.5.2)
• Kinship care EXCLUDED from protective services per §2.2.2(f) (informational, not a modeling gap — §3.3.1(vi)'s "kinship care" phrasing treated as descriptive of the federal CCDF list, not AL-specific inclusion)

Test plan

• 103 tests pass locally
• make format clean
• CI passes
• Regulatory reviewer verifies: disabled-parent activity exemption (not in §2.2.2 text but standard cross-state convention per SC/VA), 7% copay cap omission, protective-services member coverage

Verification TODO

• Confirm Provider Rate Chart effective date (chart is undated on its face; defaulted to 2024-01-01)
• Confirm Provider Rate Chart hosting on alacourt.gov is the current/canonical version

🤖 Generated with /encode-policy-v2

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 100.00%. Comparing base (8cb60e7) to head (0363c3c).
⚠️ Report is 23 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

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  Coverage   100.00%   100.00%            
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  Files            3        16    +13     
  Lines           63       297   +234     
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+ Hits            63       297   +234     

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unittests	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)

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