Relating to economic development including child care, grants and tax credits relating to child care, and state child care assistance, and including applicability provisions

DIVISION II —— CHILD CARE CENTER AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT HOME GRANTS —— FUND. The bill creates a new Code chapter relating to child care center and child care development home grants. The bill creates definitions for “child”, “child care”, “child development home”, “department”, “facility”, “fund”, “home”, “licensed child care center”, and “program”. The bill creates a child care center and child development home grant fund (fund) in the state treasury under the control of the department of health and human services (HHS). The fund may consist of any moneys appropriated by the general assembly for purposes of the fund and any other moneys that are lawfully available to HHS. Moneys in the fund do not revert to the general fund of the state, and interest earned on the fund is credited to the fund. The bill requires HHS to adopt rules to establish and administer a child care center and child development home program (program) to provide for the allocation of moneys in the fund in the form of grants, not to exceed $50,000 per grant, to eligible persons for costs related to the establishment of a new licensed child care center or a new child development home, or for the expansion of an existing child care center or child development home. For any one fiscal year, HHS may not approve more than $4 million in grants. Rules adopted by HHS must specify the eligibility requirements for applicants of the program grant and the items eligible for a program grant. Items eligible for a program grant must include costs related to licensing or registration, supplies, employee salaries, and infrastructure. The bill requires a program grant recipient to build and make a new child care center or child development home fully operational within two years of receiving a program grant. The bill requires that a new or expanded facility that receives a program grant must have a minimum of percent of its children from families that qualify for state child care assistance. The bill requires a person who receives a program grant to enter into an agreement with HHS that specifies the requirements that must be maintained throughout the period of the agreement in order for the person to retain the grant, as detailed in the bill. DIVISION III —— SMALL BUSINESS CHILD CARE TAX CREDIT. The bill creates a small business child care tax credit. The bill defines “small business” as any enterprise located in this state, which is operated for profit under a single management and which has either fewer than employees or an annual gross income of less than $4 million computed as the average of the three preceding fiscal years. The bill allows a small business to receive a tax credit for providing child care employee benefits to employees of the business. The amount of the credit equals the costs to provide the benefit up to $3,000 per employee per year. The aggregate amount of tax credits cannot exceed a total of $2 million per fiscal year and are awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. The bill requires a small business to provide child care employee benefits to employees through certain methods in order to be eligible for the small business child care tax credit. The small business child care tax credit applies toward reducing personal net income taxes, the taxes on corporations, the taxes on financial institutions, and the taxes on insurance companies. The tax reduction applies to tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2023. DIVISION IV —— STATE CHILD CARE ASSISTANCE. The state offers child care assistance (CCA) to persons who meet certain eligibility requirements. CCA is only open to a certain number of participants at one time. If CCA is currently unavailable to new participants, families applying for CCA will be placed on a waiting list. The priority of families on the waiting list are, in descending order of prioritization, families with an income at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) whose members, for at least hours per week in the aggregate, are employed or are participating at a satisfactory level in an approved training program or educational program, and parents with a family income at or below 100 percent of the FPL who are under years of age and are participating in an educational program leading to a high school diploma or the equivalent; parents with a family income at or below 100 percent of the FPL who are under years of age and are participating, at a satisfactory level, in an approved training program or in an educational program; families with an income of more than 100 percent but not more than 145 percent of the FPL whose members, for at least hours per week in the aggregate, are employed or are participating at a satisfactory level in an approved training program or educational program; and families with an income at or below 200 percent of the FPL whose members are employed at least hours per week with a special needs child as a member of the family. The bill changes the maximum income to be eligible for the third category of prioritization for purposes of the waiting list from 145 percent to 200 percent. The bill directs HHS to amend its administrative rules to provide income eligibility for state CCA, according to family size for children needing basic care, to families whose nonexempt gross monthly income does not exceed 200 percent of the FPL and to adjust the state CCA copayment schedule in incrementally increased amounts for families whose nonexempt gross monthly income does not exceed 200 percent of the FPL. The bill makes such adopted rules effective January 1, 2024.