Complete Nebraska Child Care Subsidy implementation

[hua7450]

Summary

This PR replaces the incomplete Nebraska Child Care Subsidy model with a current-law, monthly eligibility and provider-reimbursement model. It preserves the existing annual ne_child_care_subsidies output by summing the 12 monthly subsidy amounts.

Fixes #9185

Regulatory authority

The implementation follows:

• Neb. Rev. Stat. § 68-1206 as amended by LB304 (2026), which controls the income tiers, earned-income disregard, continuity ceiling, and annual October 1 rate schedule.
• 392 NAC, which governs the assistance unit, age, assets, activity, provider, income, and administrative rules.
• Nebraska DHHS binding Title 392 guidance, the approved FFY 2025–2027 CCDF State Plan, the 2025–2027 rate chart, and the provider handbook.

Research archived and page-verified 10 official PDFs totaling 328 pages.

Income eligibility tests

• Use the SPM unit as the documented proxy for Nebraska's assistance unit and apply family-size-specific FPL and SMI amounts.
• Require Nebraska residence, at least one eligible child, an eligible provider arrangement, and every modeled caretaker to meet an observable or explicitly reported qualifying activity.
• Apply the child-only CCDF immigration test. Adult immigration status and Social Security numbers do not determine eligibility.
• Apply ordinary eligibility through age 12, enrolled-period continuity at age 13, and verified special-needs eligibility through age 18.
• Require assets at or below $1,000,000 unless an approved foster, protective-services, adoption, guardianship, or ward category waives the income and asset tests. These categories do not waive activity or provider requirements.
• Use explicit monthly enrollment, redetermination, and completed-12-month status inputs. Their false defaults treat a household as an initial applicant rather than inferring administrative history from current survey data.

Income deductions and exemptions

The model separately sums parameter-listed earned and unearned sources. It excludes mapped tax, nutrition, housing, education, and other noncountable benefits and excludes earnings of an in-school child through age 18, following 392 NAC pages 11–14.

After an explicit 12-continuous-month status is present, the model disregards 10% of gross earned income only. It uses available net self-employment and farm income as the documented proxy for Nebraska's gross-receipts and allowable-expense calculation. Regular military pay is counted, but available inputs cannot isolate the legally excluded combat-pay portion.

TANF enrollment and approved categorical cases waive the family fee. The model excludes computed Nebraska AABD from countable income to avoid a child-care-benefit dependency cycle.

Income standards

Determination	Current-law standard	Boundary
Initial eligibility	185% FPL	Income at the limit qualifies
Redetermination	200% FPL	Income must be strictly below the limit
Enrolled-period continuation	85% SMI	Income at the limit qualifies
Fee-free tier	100% FPL	Gross income at the limit has no fee

LB304 permanently retains the first three current-law tiers and the 10% earned-income disregard. Above 100% FPL, one monthly family fee equals 7% of gross program income under the approved current-income approximation; the fee applies once across all children.

Benefit calculation

For an eligible family, the monthly model:

1. Determines each child's maximum provider reimbursement from location, provider type, age group, quality tier, authorized unit, paid days or hours, and any administratively approved special-needs adjustment.
2. Adds approved transportation, summer activity, and registration fees.
3. Caps the summed state maximum and approved fees at the family's pre-subsidy private charge.
4. Subtracts one monthly family fee and floors the result at zero.

The model transcribes all 192 licensed urban/rural rate cells from the current rate chart. It also models license-exempt family-home rates of $9.90 partial day and $16.50 full day in urban counties, $8.80 and $14.90 in rural counties, and license-exempt in-home care at $13.50 per hour. Billing units are partial day below 5 hours, full day from 5 through under 10 hours, and full plus partial from 10 through 18 hours, subject to 18-hour daily and 60-hour weekly caps.

Approved special-needs care can increase the normal rate by 25%. Optional rules include $5 per transportation occurrence, a $50 monthly summer activity fee capped at $150 annually, registration fees of $25 for centers and $15 for homes, and up to five approved absence days per month. The model dates the 2025–2027 rate matrix to October 1, 2025 based on the chart label, the current DHHS schedule, and the statutory October 1 rate-setting rule.

The final annual ne_child_care_subsidies variable adds monthly results, preserving monthly eligibility, fees, attendance, and provider facts rather than applying one annual determination.

Requirements coverage

• Covered 30/30 approved in-scope requirements, with 0 missing.
• Tracked four approved not-modeled groups separately.
• Loaded and linked all 34 parameter files, including the complete provider-rate matrix.
• Registered all 36 manifest variables: 35 Nebraska program files plus the existing annual aggregator.
• Reduced the variable design from 38 to 36 by inlining the single-use family-fee-waiver and maximum-payment intermediates.
• Added 19 YAML test files with 109 cases, including 6 integration scenarios.

Not modeled

The four approved groups remain explicit limitations:

1. Administrative compliance and approval facts, including immunization, child-support good cause, fraud, provider background checks, and owner or employee accommodations.
2. Detailed activity and case-plan facts, including Employment First, treatment, on-the-job training, incapacity, job-search timing, course load, night work, travel, and study time. Scenarios can supply the generic approved-activity fallback.
3. Historical enrollment, redetermination, completed-12-month disregard, irregular-income lookback, and fee-freeze history. Scenarios supply monthly status inputs; conservative defaults are false.
4. Provider type, quality, authorized unit, attendance, private charge, special-needs rate approval, and optional-fee records. Missing provider, quality, or authorized-unit inputs default to no provider or unit and therefore no calculated rate.

The SPM unit and tax-unit head or spouse roles approximate Nebraska's assistance unit and caretakers. The model does not infer shared custody, temporary absence, minor-parent, unborn-child, or placement exceptions.

Historical notes

LB304 was approved April 14, 2026 and became effective July 18, 2026. It removed the October 1, 2026 sunset that would have reverted initial eligibility to 130% FPL. The implementation therefore keeps the 185% FPL initial threshold, strict below-200% FPL redetermination tier, 10% earned-income disregard, and 85% SMI continuation ceiling after October 1, 2026.

The implementation replaces obsolete citations and earlier rate values with the current Nebraska Legislature, Secretary of State, and DHHS sources. It leaves the existing federal CCDF and household state-benefit registries unchanged.

Files added

Commit 5c670a75522f214ace16da44392fb0dc824c1c52 changes 89 files:

• 34 Nebraska Child Care Subsidy parameter files.
• 35 files in the program variable directory; with the unchanged annual aggregator, the manifest contains 36 variables.
• 19 Nebraska Child Care Subsidy YAML test files.
• 1 towncrier changelog fragment.

The commit does not include local research under sources/, uv.lock, partner contract tests, or registry changes.

Testing

• make format: passed; Ruff reformatted 12 Nebraska implementation files and reported all checks passed.
• Exact Nebraska CCDF program directory: 109/109 cases passed.
• Exact licensed-rate matrix file after the mechanical EOF whitespace fix: 2/2 cases passed.
• Structural validation: PASS, with 36/36 variable entries, 34/34 parameter files, 19/19 test files, no dependency cycles or orphans, and 0 escalations.
• Quick diff audit: PASS, with 0 findings.

Testing was scoped to the Nebraska Child Care Subsidy paths at the user's direction. No broader Nebraska, state, package, repository, partner-contract, or microsimulation test suite ran.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 100.00%. Comparing base (74f045a) to head (ef5cd2b).
⚠️ Report is 9 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##              main     #9186    +/-   ##
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  Coverage   100.00%   100.00%            
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  Files            3        34    +31     
  Lines           63       529   +466     
  Branches         3         3            
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+ Hits            63       529   +466     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)

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