HILL AIR FORCE BASE — Department of Defense child development program fees for school year 2021-22 are currently being assessed at Child Development Center East and CDC West and the School Age Care Program at the Youth Center.

Section 1793 of title 10 U.S. code, requires DoD prescribe uniform fee regulations for military child development programs. The chart below applies to families who attend Child Development Center, School Age Care and Family Child Care Subsidy programs regularly during the 2021-22 school year.

Parents were required to provide leave and earning statements prior to Aug. 1. New fees will go into effect Aug. 15.

Fees are set by DoD to pay approximately half of the total cost of providing child care.

The Military Child Care Acts of 1989 and 1996 directs parents to pay approximately half of the cost of care. Fees are based on total family income, or TFI. TFI is adjusted each school year to reflect approved military and civilian pay increases.

In practice, this means that a family will not move to a higher fee category solely because of a cost of living increase. Fees have changed for the following reasons:

• Compensate for the increase in direct care staff hourly wages necessary to compete with local labor markets that have not been adjusted since school year 2018-19;
• The fee policy increases the number of family income categories from 9 to 13 and establishes TFI ranges with $10,000 increments between each income category;
• Parent fees have been adjusted to address the lack of uniformity in the range of the TFI categories to provide a more equitable and uniform fee structure to account for higher income households making more than $140,000 per year; and
• Fees have been adjusted, to a large degree, to compensate for increases in direct care staff hourly wages necessary to compete with local labor markets.

This new fee policy increases the number of family income categories from 9 to 13 and includes an increase in the hourly child care rate from $5 to $7 per hour.

Hill AFB Child and Youth Programs routed a request to implement the high market fee rate (an additional $10 per week per category), due to the non-appropriated fund, or NAF, staff wage compensation policy going into effect by Oct. 4, which results in direct care staff receiving a 9% pay increase, which equates to an additional $202,000 in personnel expense over previous year.

The request was disapproved at this time, after clarifying that the wage compensation increase was already factored into the new fees. It was suggested to continue to monitor income and personnel expenses over the next year to see if there is a need to request high market fees next year.

As a point of interest for our families, after polling seven local off-base child care programs, the average weekly fees are $196 per week per child, and only one of which is nationally accredited.

Hill CDCs and School Age Care programs are accredited by the National Association for the Education for Young Children and Council on Accreditation.

We pride ourselves in providing the highest quality care with highly trained staff. As of September 2021, the Air Force standardized Early Learning Matters curriculum will be offered for all age groups within the CDCs, with the ultimate focus on school readiness.

As always, we appreciate the ongoing support of the families we serve.

Families are encouraged to join us for our next monthly Child Youth Programs Virtual Town Hall from 9:45-10:15 a.m. Sept. 10. During the session, COVID-19 updates and other program news will be shared, as well as provide parents the opportunity to ask questions or address any concerns.