Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Sanders:
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is a nonprofit, cross-party think tank dedicated to developing durable bipartisan solutions to the nation’s most pressing challenges. For nearly a decade, BPC has worked on child care policy in collaboration with Congress, state officials, families, and stakeholders to improve program design, administration, and outcomes. Through this work, BPC has gained practical insight into how the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) functions in practice and why effective administration is essential for families, providers, and the broader child care system.
We commend the committee for its continued focus on CCDF, a program that plays a critical role in helping working families access child care and remain in the workforce, including through the upcoming hearing, Restoring Integrity: Preventing Fraud in Child Care Assistance Programs. The committee’s emphasis on program integrity creates an important opportunity to assess how CCDF operates and to identify targeted improvements that can enhance efficiency and public confidence. BPC stands ready to support the committee as it evaluates options to strengthen and modernize the program for the families it serves.
CCDF’s Role in Supporting the Workforce, Families, and the Economy
When implemented effectively, CCDF helps parents stay connected to employment, enables providers to deliver regulated and licensed care, and reduces broader economic disruptions tied to child care instability. Research consistently shows that gaps in child care access lower labor force participation, increase absenteeism, and impose costs on employers and regional economies. Federal Reserve survey data further demonstrate that caregiving responsibilities — including access to child care — influence whether adults work or seek employment, underscoring the importance of program stability.
BPC’s own analysis, conducted with partner organizations, aligns with this broader research and highlights the scale of access challenges. Ensuring that CCDF remains accessible, predictable, and administratively workable is therefore critical not only for families but also for overall economic stability.
Opportunities to Strengthen Program Integrity
CCDF operates through a federal–state partnership in which states administer the program under broad statutory requirements established in the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and commitments outlined in approved state plans. Federal oversight largely focuses on reviewing and approving these plans and assessing whether states are implementing the policies they describe. Within this framework, states bear primary responsibility for day-to-day administration and compliance, while federal integrity guidance remains relatively high level.
As the committee considers ways to strengthen program integrity, this structure presents both advantages and challenges. State flexibility supports a diverse child care landscape, but inconsistent guidance and the absence of shared integrity tools can hinder timely and proportionate risk identification and response. Any integrity reforms should therefore be carefully calibrated to avoid disrupting family access or provider participation.
BPC has identified several areas that may warrant further congressional review. These include increasing transparency around the causes of improper payments by clearly distinguishing fraud, administrative error, and technical noncompliance. It is also important to improve processes to ensure that payment-integrity issues identified in corrective action plans are appropriately escalated and resolved in a timely and durable manner while preserving federal–state flexibility. In addition, the federal government should expand its use of data-driven risk indicators to detect improper payments, including fraud, earlier and enable prevention-focused oversight
If approached thoughtfully, targeted improvements in these areas could strengthen accountability and public trust while preserving the flexibility and stability families and providers depend on.
Modernization, Stability, and Predictability
As the committee reviews opportunities to strengthen CCDF integrity, this moment also offers an overdue chance to modernize the program’s underlying framework to better reflect current child care realities.
CCDBG, the primary statute governing CCDF administration and oversight, was last reauthorized in 2014. Since then, family needs and workforce patterns have evolved in response to broader economic and labor market trends. Although work arrangements have become more varied in location and scheduling — partly due to technological advances — the fundamental need for reliable, uninterrupted child care during working hours remains unchanged. Updating the statute would help ensure continued alignment with current conditions.
Over this period, regulatory changes have also affected CCDF administration. Policy shifts across administrations have created uncertainty in the child care sector and limited the ability of states and providers to plan effectively for the long term.
We encourage Congress to reauthorize CCDBG. Across party lines, there is growing agreement around several key goals for modernizing the nation’s child care system, including expanding access and affordability for working families; reinforcing parental choice within a mixed-delivery system of public, private, nonprofit, faith-based, and family providers; supporting effective public-private partnerships; and strengthening program stability to support consistent workforce participation.
BPC stands ready to assist the committee and Congress in advancing a comprehensive reauthorization that addresses program integrity while incorporating bipartisan proposals to better support America’s working families.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Oldham
Executive Vice President, Human Capital
Bipartisan Policy Center