Early care and education.

This bill would revise the definition of the term "attendance" for purposes of reimbursement to additionally include excused absences for expulsion or suspension, as provided.

(2) The Early Education Act establishes eligibility requirements, including income eligibility requirements, and a specified priority sequence for enrollment, for the part-day and full-day preschool programs. The act requires the State Department of Education to, on or before January 1, 2027, implement these eligibility requirements through management bulletins or similar letters of instruction. The act specifies, for purposes of establishing ongoing income eligibility, that ongoing income eligibility means that a family's initial income eligibility for services at the time of enrollment will be in effect, regardless of income. The act authorizes a provider operating a California state preschool program within the attendance boundary of a school district or certain public schools where at least 80% of the enrolled pupils are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, foster youth, or English learners, to enroll 3-year-old and 4-year-old children in accordance with the above-described enrollment priorities, and any remaining spots to families not meeting the enrollment priorities, as specified.

This bill would require the department, notwithstanding the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, to implement, interpret, or make specific these above-described eligibility requirements, ongoing income eligibility establishment, and enrollment authorization prior to regulatory action and would require these management bulletins or similar letters of instruction to have the same force and effect as regulations until the adoption of regulations, as provided. The bill would revise the priority sequence for eligibility by including, as the final priority, enrolling any eligible child in income ranking order, as specified.

(3) Existing law authorizes a California state preschool program to schedule up to 5 days of staff training, per contract period, using state reimbursement funding on specified topics.

This bill would authorize those training days to be used to cover additional topics, including, among others, meeting certain staff professional development requirements, and to be used as full days or partial days, as specified. The bill would require a training day scheduled during a contractor's regular hours of operation without children in attendance to be considered a day of operation for purposes of meeting the minimum days of operation for part-day and full-day California state preschool programs, as provided. The bill would also require family childcare home providers, as specified, who use the staff training days to be paid based on the maximum certified hours of care for that training time, as provided. The bill would authorize these family childcare home providers to use the training days or partial training days to access training offered by the family childcare home education network or training offered by the Joint Child Care Providers United - State of California Training Partnership Fund.

(4) Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services, in consultation with the State Department of Education, to establish a fee schedule for families using preschool and childcare and developmental services and requires families who utilize those services to be assessed a family fee that is based on income, certified family need for full-time or part-time care services, and enrollment. Existing law requires the Superintendent to use the fee schedule developed in conjunction with the State Department of Social Services for families using full-day preschool services. Existing law requires, by no later than January 1, 2027, contractors to reimburse California state preschool program providers for the full amount of the certificate or voucher without deducting family fees and to collect family fees, as specified.

This bill would instead require, by no later than January 1, 2027, contractors to pay family childcare providers for California state preschool program services without deducting family fees while still requiring contractors to collect those family fees, as specified.

(5) Existing law, the California Child Day Care Facilities Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of child daycare facilities by the State Department of Social Services. A person who willfully or repeatedly violates any provision of the California Child Day Care Facilities Act, or any rule or regulation promulgated under the act, is guilty of a crime. Existing law requires all staff who provide childcare at those facilities, each family daycare home licensee, and each substitute adult in a family daycare home to complete at least 15 hours of specified health and safety training that includes pediatric first aid, pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and preventive health practices.

This bill would instead just require at least one director or teacher at each daycare center and each family daycare home licensee who provides care to complete that safety training, and would, commencing October 1, 2027, revert back to the above-described existing law.

Existing law requires a family daycare home licensee to be present in the home and ensure that children in care are provided care and supervision during all hours of operation. Existing law requires the licensee to arrange for a substitute adult to provide care and supervision of the children in care when circumstances require a licensee to occasionally be temporarily absent from a family daycare home during its hours of operation, and requires a family daycare home to report and submit a written report on a temporary absence of the licensee to the department, as specified.

This bill would instead require at least one family daycare home licensee to be present in the home, would instead require the arrangement of a substitute adult when a licensee is temporarily absent from a family daycare home during the time period when children in care are present, and would remove the requirement for temporary absence reporting to the department.

(6) Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services, in collaboration with the State Department of Education, to implement a reimbursement system plan that establishes reasonable standards and assigned reimbursement rates for subsidized childcare and development services, and to develop and conduct an alternative methodology for ratesetting, as specified. Existing law requires the department, from October 1, 2024, to July 1, 2027, inclusive, to submit quarterly updates on the implementation of the new reimbursement rates set under the alternative methodology to specified committees of the Legislature and to the Legislative Analyst's Office.

This bill would instead require those quarterly reports to continue being submitted until July 1, 2028, and would require the quarterly report that is required to be issued in July 2027, to consist of the considerations required to add monthly cost of care plus rates to existing reimbursement rates that are funded within existing childcare and development contracts for alternative payment programs.

Existing law states the intent of the Legislature that the rate structure established under the alternative methodology include certain components, including, among other things, that rates vary based on specified factors, including child age.

This bill would further specify the age groupings the Legislature intends the rate structure to include. The bill would state the intent of the Legislature for the rate structure to include enhanced inclusion rates, to be administered as a per-child amount, as specified. The bill would also state the intent of the Legislature that the alternative methodology be based on a cost study and cost estimation model that considers certain costs.

(7) The Budget Act of 2025 made appropriations related to social services.

This bill would reappropriate $1,000,000 of those funds for activities related to safety and regulation of children's camps and extend the period in which the reappropriated funds may be encumbered until June 30, 2027.

(8) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.