Summary

Implements New Mexico's Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), administered by the Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD), under 8.15.2 NMAC. The subsidy reimburses providers per child based on a four-dimensional rate table (provider type × FOCUS star level × age group × service unit), with copays waived since 2022-05-01 and a no-income-limit Universal Child Care era beginning 2025-11-01.

Closes #8706

Regulatory Authority

• 8.15.2 NMAC — "Requirements for Child Care Assistance Programs for Clients and Child Care Providers" (HTML, SRCA): https://www.srca.nm.gov/parts/title08/08.015.0002.html (HTML source — no #page= anchor). Subsections used:
  • 8.15.2.9 — initial certification income tiers (Priority 1/100%, Priority 4/200% FPL)
  • 8.15.2.11.C(3),(5),(6),(8)(b) — income basis (caretaker income; dependents excluded), counted income, exempt income, conversion factors
  • 8.15.2.11.D / .E / .F / .G / .H / .I — NM residence, citizenship/qualified-immigrant, age 6 wk–<13, special-supervision 13–18, no benefit during school hours, work/education activity
  • 8.15.2.12 — recertification (250% FPL)
  • 8.15.2.13.B / .C — copay formula and service-unit adjustment
  • 8.15.2.24 — annually-published copay schedule
• ECECD Child Care Assistance Rates flyer (Effective August 2023, 10 pp PDF; rate tables on pp. 2–5): https://www.nmececd.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Cost-Model-Reimbursement-Rate-Flyer-English-and-Spanish-Revised-May-2024.pdf#page=2
• ECECD Copayment Waiver flyer (1 pp): https://www.nmececd.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/CCA-Co-payments-waived_rev1l.pdf
• ECECD Universal Child Care announcement / page: https://www.nmececd.org/universal/ (no income limit and no child-immigration bar from 2025-11-01; corroborated by the Universal Child Care Brief, Dec 11 2025: https://www.nmececd.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Universal-Child-Care-Brief-12-11-25_FINAL_REV2.pdf#page=1)

Eligibility

Note: the parent's immigration status is never an eligibility factor (45 CFR 98.20(c)); only the child's citizenship/qualified-immigrant status was ever modeled, and that child-level test toggles off under UCC (the child is then served with state funds — immigration status sets only the funding source, not eligibility).

Benefit Calculation

For each eligible child, the per-child subsidy is the lesser of the provider reimbursement rate and the actual pre-subsidy childcare charge, minus the copay, floored at zero:

subsidy_per_child = max(0, min(provider_rate, pre_subsidy_childcare_charge) − copay)

The SPMUnit nm_ccap benefit sums this across eligible children. The copay (nm_ccap_copay) is $0 for all modeled periods because copay/waived.yaml is true from 2022-05-01.

The provider rate (nm_ccap_monthly_rate) is a four-dimensional lookup:

• Provider type (nm_ccap_provider_type enum) × FOCUS star level (nm_ccap_focus_level enum) × age group (nm_ccap_age_group, derived from age-in-months brackets) — yields the full-time base rate.
• Service unit (nm_ccap_service_unit) scales the base rate by service_unit_fraction.yaml: Full time = 100%, Part time 1 = 75%, Part time 2 = 50%, Part time 3 = 25%.
• Non-traditional-hours differential (nm_ccap_non_traditional_hours) adds +5% / +10% / +15% of the applicable rate for after-hours care (7pm–7am weekdays and weekends).

Registered Home / In-Home providers use a single rate per age group (no star levels).

Provider Reimbursement Rates

Rates come from the ECECD Child Care Assistance Rates flyer (Effective August 2023). Full-time base monthly rates are stored per provider type:

• rates/center.yaml and rates/group_home.yaml and rates/family_home.yaml — breakdown: [focus_level, age_group], five FOCUS levels (2-Star, 2+Star, 3-Star, 4-Star, 5-Star) × four age groups (Infant, Toddler, Preschool, School Age).
• rates/registered_home.yaml — breakdown: [age_group], single rate, no star levels.
• rates/service_unit_fraction.yaml — FT/PT1/PT2/PT3 fractions (1.0 / 0.75 / 0.50 / 0.25) applied once, so part-time columns are not transcribed per provider.

All 84 rate cells were verified against the rate-flyer PDF (pp. 1–5) at 1200 DPI — every full-time base rate, the service-unit fractions, and the non-traditional differential match exactly. Age-group boundaries (0–23 / 24–35 / 36–71 / 72+ months) follow the 8.15.2.7 definitions, which are more precise than the flyer's age labels.

Requirements Coverage

Not Modeled

Files Added

policyengine_us/parameters/gov/states/nm/ececd/ccap/
  copay/waived.yaml
  eligibility/child_age_limit.yaml
  eligibility/immigration_test_in_effect.yaml
  eligibility/income_limit_in_effect.yaml
  eligibility/special_needs_child_age_limit.yaml
  eligibility/fpl_limit/continuation.yaml
  eligibility/fpl_limit/initial.yaml
  income/countable_income/sources.yaml
  rates/center.yaml
  rates/group_home.yaml
  rates/family_home.yaml
  rates/registered_home.yaml
  rates/service_unit_fraction.yaml
  rates/age_group/months.yaml
  rates/service_unit/hours.yaml
  supplements/non_traditional_hours.yaml

policyengine_us/variables/gov/states/nm/ececd/ccap/
  nm_ccap.py
  nm_child_care_subsidies.py
  nm_ccap_age_group.py
  nm_ccap_copay.py
  nm_ccap_countable_income.py
  nm_ccap_enrolled.py
  nm_ccap_focus_level.py
  nm_ccap_monthly_rate.py
  nm_ccap_non_traditional_hours.py
  nm_ccap_provider_type.py
  nm_ccap_service_unit.py
  eligibility/nm_ccap_activity_eligible.py
  eligibility/nm_ccap_eligible.py
  eligibility/nm_ccap_eligible_child.py
  eligibility/nm_ccap_income_eligible.py

policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/nm/ececd/ccap/
  integration.yaml
  nm_ccap_age_group.yaml
  nm_ccap_copay.yaml
  nm_ccap_countable_income.yaml
  nm_ccap_monthly_rate.yaml
  nm_ccap_service_unit.yaml
  eligibility/nm_ccap_activity_eligible.yaml
  eligibility/nm_ccap_eligible.yaml
  eligibility/nm_ccap_eligible_child.yaml
  eligibility/nm_ccap_income_eligible.yaml

The asset test reuses the federal is_ccdf_asset_eligible (no state asset parameter or variable).

Registry edits:

• policyengine_us/parameters/gov/hhs/ccdf/child_care_subsidy_programs.yaml — added nm_child_care_subsidies to the CCDF adds list so the benefit flows into the federal child_care_subsidies.
• policyengine_us/programs.yaml — added the New Mexico CCAP state_implementations entry under federal CCDF (variable: nm_ccap, status: complete).

Verification TODO

• Confirm the rate schedule is current. The ECECD rate flyer is labeled "Effective August 2023" but the file is dated May 2024; no newer schedule was found. Verify the rate amounts remain current.
• Confirm the "2+Star == 3-Star" rate equality. The published flyer lists identical rates for 2+Star and 3-Star FOCUS across all provider tables. This was confirmed present in the source (verified at 1200 DPI, not a transcription artifact) and is flagged here for reviewer awareness.

Test plan

• 91 tests pass (policyengine-core test policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/nm/ececd/ccap -c policyengine_us -v)
• CI passes