Updated November 2004

Congress Finishes Child Nutrition Reauthorization
CACFP Provisions

Congress has passed the 2004 Child Nutrition Reauthorization. Congratulations to all the sponsors, state agency staff, providers, and anti-hunger and child care advocates for your successful advocacy for CACFP improvements. Over the past two years your calls, letters, faxes, e-mails, Congressional visits and the thousands of beautiful CACFP Links, have made a difference. In a Congress with very little extra money and an enormous log jam of unfinished business, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization passed and includes some very good CACFP provisions.

We all owe a very big THANK YOU to USDA and the Congressional staff for all their hard work and dedication to getting this bill done. USDA's involvement was key to a strong reauthorization including the creation and passage of the paperwork reduction provisions. The continued and substantial efforts of many organizations including the Food Research and Action Center, National CACFP Forum, California CCFP Roundtable, Sponsors Association, National CACFP Professionals, Congressional Hunger Center, Child Nutrition Forum, National Family Child Care Association, National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies and the National Women's Law Center were invaluable.

While we wish that more funds had been available in the budget to take more steps forward, we are pleased that the bill includes a number of the CACFP communities' priorities including excellent paperwork reduction provisions, eligibility extensions, a reduction from 50 percent to 40 percent for area eligibility in rural areas pilot in Nebraska, a nutrition demonstration pilot, eligibility for children up to 18 years of age residing in homeless shelters, extension of the military housing exemption, and the permanent extension of the CACFP for-profit child care center eligibility.

In addition, the reauthorization addresses the school lunch verification issue in a productive way that for most schools will not result in more eligible children dropping out of the program.

Highlights of New Provisions:

Rural Area Eligibility Pilot Project:
The CACFP family child care pilot project offers an exciting opportunity to show how important reducing the area eligibility threshold will be to child care in rural areas. The pilot project, which will be in Nebraska, expands area eligibility for family child care in rural areas by decreasing the area eligibility threshold from 50 percent to 40 percent. This 2 year pilot is fully funded (fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2007.) In addition, a USDA evaluation is funded. The timing should allow positive findings to be ready for a push for expansion of the change in area eligibility in the next reauthorization. Remember this is how the CACFP for-profit center expansion started and it is now a permanent part of the law nationally. Click here for more details on this provision.

We were all hoping for a few more states for this pilot, several states were very close to being a pilot (you know who you are). Unfortunately, because the CACFP pilot actually changes eligibility it is relatively expensive compared to the Summer pilots which change an administrative rule. Consequently, Congress could only afford one CACFP pilot with the limited new funds. However, the CACFP pilot is fully funded and many of the other pilots including the school lunch elimination of reduced price pilots were not given any funding.

Extends Duration of Tier 1 Eligibility:
The new law extends family child care Tier 1 area eligibility from three to five years. Click here for a USDA memo about this provision.

Permanent Agreement:
Permanent agreements will be allowed in all states between State agencies and institutions, and between sponsoring organizations and family or group day care home providers. This can streamline program operations and reduce paperwork and record keeping for State agencies and sponsoring organizations. (The "agreement" specifies the rights and responsibilities of each party. The "agreement" is a separate document from the program "application", which must be renewed at intervals generally between one and three years.) Click here for a USDA memo about this provision.

Raise Audit Disregard:
The CACFP audit disregard will be raised to make it consistent with the National School Lunch Program disregard (from $100 to $600). Considering the large amount of money that is often involved in a CACFP audit period the current disregard of $100 is an extremely small percentage of the overall claims and it has not been adjusted since1985. The increase in the disregard to $600 will allow State agencies to allow a reasonable margin of error in auditing which will:

• decrease unnecessary paperwork and costs related to the collection of small sums of money and
• facilitate Program administration for State agencies that administer both the NSLP and CACFP.

Paperwork Reduction:
A paperwork reduction effort will examine the feasibility of reducing paperwork related to regulations and record keeping requirements for family child care homes, child care centers, State CACFP agencies and sponsoring organizations participating in CACFP. This will allow CACFP program operations to be streamlined and made more efficient in a number of important ways. Click here for more details on this provision.

Nutrition Education Demonstration Project:
The new law includes a demonstration project to enhance CACFP sponsoring organization and child care center obesity prevention activities targeted to limited-English-proficient audiences. If Congress funds this project, USDA will select a national organization to carry out this demonstration project in 4 states with a growing immigrant population.

For more information, contact Geri Henchy, 202-986-2200 x3025, ghenchy@frac.org.

Click here for a list of all the Child Nutrition Reauthorization CACFP provisions.

Click here to return to FRAC's Child Nutrition Reauthorization Implementation website.

Factsheets on Child Nutrition Programs School Breakfast  |  School Lunch  |  Afterschool  |  Summer Food Women, Infants, and Children  |  Child and Adult Care Food Program

Prepared by the Food Research & Action Center, 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20009; 202-986-2200; www.frac.org