The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services told the committee it adopted administrative changes to child care assistance and proposed related changes to child-care staffing rules that drew pushback from legislators.

Joe Campos, compliance officer with the Department of Health and Human Services, said ARC 8741C and related Chapter 170 revisions implement legislative changes from 2023 and 2024. He said the rulemaking "readjust[ed] the family income limit and the family fee chart based on annual FPL changes." The adopted rule updates the child care assistance family-income limit from 45% to 60% of the federal poverty level and raises the minimum hours-of-participation requirement from 28 to 32 hours for families without a special-needs child; it also updates half-day reimbursement rates to reflect the 2023 market-rate survey. Campos said the anticipated effective date was March 26.

On fiscal impact, Campos said the department reported "no fiscal impact beyond implementation, to which the LSA concurs," and that the department anticipated absorbing costs from the child care development fund surplus and by shifting some state expense to federal funding sources.

Committee members pressed the department on timing. One member noted the initial notice of intended action was published in February 2024 and asked why rule adoption had taken until 2025. Campos explained subsequent 2024 legislation required additional changes before rules could be finalized.

A separate, contested portion of the discussion concerned rules that would allow staff under age 18 to provide child-care services without adult supervision in limited circumstances. Senator (committee member) raised concerns that the proposed rule language could allow 16- and 17-year-old staff to care for children between ages 2 and 5 unsupervised. Ryan Page, director of childcare at the department, replied: "Current rules do only allow it for the school age population for those 16 and 17 year old employees." He explained the proposed expansion would be structured around "structured nap hours" for children ages 2'5 and brief periods of absence (already defined in the rules as five minutes or less) for activities such as bathroom breaks or grabbing a lunch cart. Page said the department views the changes as an optional staffing flexibility to help providers, not a mandatory requirement.

Why it matters: the income-limit and fee-chart changes alter program eligibility and provider reimbursement; the staffing-age language has raised statutory-and-safety concerns among lawmakers, who warned against agency rule changes that anticipate legislation that has not passed. The department described the staffing proposal as responsive both to provider communications and to proposed legislation under consideration.

The committee requested further follow-up and said it would monitor the department's final language before adoption.