Alaska Division of Public Assistance, Child Care Program Office
Update 12/12/2023
The Child Care Program Office (CCPO) held their quarterly Provider Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, November 28. The following is information shared by the CCPO regarding relief funding and other initiatives:
Stabilization and Relief Funds Updates
Thank you for responding to our Phase 1 & 2 reporting surveys. Your answers to these surveys will provide important information for required federal reporting and will help us better serve child care providers in Alaska. Your individual responses will be used for official reporting purposes only. The Phase 3 survey is currently active. The deadline for submitting the Phase 3 survey has been extended to December 15. McKinley has put together reports for Phases 1 and 2 but is waiting until Phase 3 to create a comparative analysis.
As of September 30, 2023, all Federal relief funds have been obligated. CARES, CRRSA, and APRA Stabilization funding have all been liquidated as of March 2023. ARPA Discretionary funds will be fully liquidated by September 2024.
Updated documents that provide updated details regarding federal Relief Funds granted to Alaska through the Coronavirus Relief and Response Supplemental Act (CRRSA) and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) will be posted in the coming weeks as part of the follow-up to this town hall, in addition to the regular follow-up broadcast. For the latest information on Stabilization and Relief Funds from the CCPO, please visit our website for recent Broadcasts and updates:
health.alaska.gov/dpa/Pages/ccare/broadcasts.aspx
Monitoring & Tracking
As we work through the process of completing the ARPA Stabilization grant, we are implementing the tracking, monitoring, and auditing that go along with it. We have been working with our federal oversight agency and internal state quality assurance team to discuss what that will look like for providers who received stabilization grants. As noted, we have requested in all phases of ARPA stabilization that you keep track of expenses, receipts, numbers, etc., in the case of an Audit. Audit season will be coming up, addressing all Phases of stabilization, spent and unspent. Monitoring may occur monthly with a random sample of providers being chosen and we will ask for receipts on purchases to ensure they were within allowable use categories.
We are working with federal Technical Assistance providers to go over monitoring and audit requirements for ARPA. CCPO is working with the Quality Assurance Unit within our Department and will be putting together an audit strategy and finalizing the auditing process over the coming months. We work on this process with several goals in mind, which include accountability measures for both federal and state requirements, while also being mindful of the level of burden on providers.
This process is not fully developed yet, and when it is we will share the information and guidance with you in our regular ways: town halls, broadcasts, FAQs, etc.
As a reminder, the Stabilization Grant spending categories can be found here:
childcareta.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/arpastabilizationgrantsuseoffundsst.pd