Alaska Division of Public Assistance, Child Care Program Office
The following broadcast was released September 27, 2023.
The Child Care Program Office (CCPO) is committed to continual improvement of the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) to increase the availability, affordability, and quality of childcare services. The CCPO periodically evaluates the current state of child care rates by conducting a Market Price Survey (MPS) to collect data on prices and the number of filled child care slots at licensed child care facilities. This information is used to set state child care rates and to ensure families participating in the Child Care Assistance Program have access to licensed child care as required by the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Plan. The CCDF Plan is the federal grant that provides funding for the following programs: Child Care Licensing, Child Care Assistance; Child Care Grant; Alaska Inclusive Child Care; and Child Care Resource and Referral.
For the second year the CCPO is working in partnership with The University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA) Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) to conduct the MPS. This letter is intended to inform you of the upcoming 2023 MPS taking place on Tuesday October 3, 2023 and to help your child care facility prepare for this process. The survey will be a web-based survey, for which you will be emailed a link on October 3, 2023. You will need the following information to complete the survey: Your facility’s contact information; capacity; attendance/enrollment, fees, rates, and waitlist records for the month of September 2023. If you gather the information before you click on the survey link, the survey will take approximately 10-15 minutes.
Child care providers without a working email address in the CCPO’s Integrated Child Care Information System (ICCIS) will be contacted by telephone. Please call Ashley Schroeder with the University of Alaska, Institute of Social and Economic Research (907) 786-6727 or email to akschroeder2@alaska.edu for any questions about the survey, or for any survey technical assistance.
If you do not receive the survey link by the close of business on October 3, 2023, please contact the CCPO toll free at 1-888-268-4632 or (907) 269-4500 and request to speak to an Eligibility and Benefits team member to request the Market Price Survey link.