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)
• 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
• LDOE annual sliding fee scales 2022–2026 (prior years via Wayback)
• 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.

Eligibility

Requirement	Source	How Modeled
Eligible child: under 13, or 13–17 if incapable of self-care	§503.A.2	age < 13 or is_disabled & age < 18; court-supervision pathway 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	Published dollar charts (top of the $10 copay band), sizes 2–12, five eras (2022–2026)
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 disabled child under 18 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)

Countable income (§509.A.3)

• Earned (head + spouse only): employment, self-employment, farm operations
• 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• Child support/alimony counted until April 20, 2025 (dated list parameter), then repealed by LR 51:529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: childcare_days_per_week × 52/12, capped at 22/month (§103); hours-only fallback prorates against the 30-hour full-time threshold
• Copay: per-child daily $0/$2/$3/$8/$10 by income band × household size from the LDOE sliding fee scale (encoded as published dollar bands — they are not exact SMI fractions); $0 below 65% SMI; waived for homeless, disabled children, STEP, and categorical households (who get 100% of the state max rate)

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	Scale footnote	Early Head Start partnership enrollment not tracked
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

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
• Copay per-day-per-child unit — corroborated by CCDF Plan ($44/$220 monthly = tier × 22 days; "fee is per child") and the 2022 redesign deck; no single LDOE document states it verbatim. Urban Institute (unverified LA data) codes it family-level
• Military rates Feb–May 2022 era cannot be covered by tests (Jan/whole-year period restriction)
• CI passes

Files

policyengine_us/parameters/gov/states/la/ldoe/ccap/   (17 files)
policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/la/ldoe/ccap/    (12 files)
policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/la/ldoe/ccap/  (11 files)

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

Test plan

• 69 YAML tests pass locally (unit tests for every formula variable + 6 integration scenarios incl. era transitions, categorical bypass, negative self-employment income, asset limit, 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 (bd1ae42) to head (df5053c).
⚠️ Report is 26 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff              @@
##             main     #8624       +/-   ##
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+ Coverage   77.77%   100.00%   +22.22%     
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  Files           1        12       +11     
  Lines           9       199      +190     
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+ Hits            7       199      +192     
+ Misses          2         0        -2     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	100.00% <100.00%> (+22.22%)	⬆️

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