Complete Illinois CCAP copays and provider payment rates

[hua7450]

Summary

This PR extends the existing Illinois Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) model from eligibility-only coverage to monthly family copayments, maximum base provider rates, and ordinary child care subsidy payments. It also updates countable income, continuing-family income eligibility, immigration treatment, benefit aggregation, and program metadata.

Fixes #9188.

Regulatory authority

The implementation uses the following official Illinois sources:

• IDHS parent copayment schedule effective July 1, 2025
• IDEC parent copayment schedule effective July 1, 2026
• IDHS CCAP Policy 04.02.01, Copayments
• IDHS provider rates effective July 1, 2025
• IDEC provider rates effective July 1, 2026
• IDHS CCAP Policy 06.05.01, Payment Rates
• IDHS non-exempt income policy, exempt income policy, and income guidelines effective July 1, 2026
• IDHS citizenship and funding-source policy

Income eligibility tests

• Retain the 225% FPL limit for new applicants.
• Allow an enrolled family to remain eligible up to the greater of the 275% FPL redetermination limit and the 85% state median income phase-out ceiling, effective July 1, 2025. The model does not track the three-month graduated phase-out period.
• Remove qualified immigration status as a program eligibility gate because Illinois authorizes otherwise-eligible non-qualified children with State funds. The existing immigration-status variable remains available for funding classification.
• Test the applicable income limits immediately below, at, and above the 225% FPL, 275% FPL, and 85% SMI boundaries.

Income deductions and exemptions

The countable-income calculation maps the official non-exempt categories to 11 model inputs: wages, farm and non-farm self-employment income (including specified-service self-employment), rental income, dividends, interest, pensions, veterans benefits, unemployment compensation, and workers compensation. It excludes the income categories identified as exempt in Illinois policy, fully deducts child support paid through a rate parameter, and floors countable income at zero.

The model excludes all child earned income (wages and farm income) as the approved approximation because the data do not identify whether a child is the CCAP applicant. Tests cover adult income, child earnings, child support paid, rental income, missing income, and a negative net amount.

Copayments

• Encode every published Table A monthly copayment cell for family sizes 2 through 10, with histories beginning July 1, 2025 and July 1, 2026.
• Charge the $1 minimum copayment at or below 100% FPL, including months with zero or missing income.
• Assess Table B — 50% of the Table A copayment, encoded as a rate parameter rather than a second cell table — from September through May when every child in care is school age (age 5 through 13 and enrolled in school) and approved for part-day care. Halving the $1 minimum reproduces the published $0.50 lowest Table B cell. The policy anchors school age at September of the school year, which the model approximates with the annual age, and school enrollment uses the model's is_in_k12_school imputation (ages 5 through 17 assumed enrolled) unless specified.
• Assess a zero copayment for child-only TANF non-parent relative cases and protective-care cases.
• Clamp copayment lookup below family size 2 to the size-2 table and above family size 10 to the size-10 table because the published schedules contain no other family sizes.

Copay tests pin the exact published cells at each table threshold, one dollar above and below, the July 2025 activation boundary, and the July 2026 Table A transition. Table B tests cover the school-year window boundaries and each disqualifying condition: a full-day sibling, a child below school age, no school enrollment, an enrolled special-needs teenager above the school-age limit, and no child in care.

Benefit calculation

The model classifies each eligible child by four provider types, three county groups, three age groups, and daily care duration. It applies the official 2025 and 2026 maximum base rates for part-day, full-day, full-plus-part-day, and two-full-day care.

For each eligible child, the model:

1. Multiplies the applicable maximum daily rate by nonnegative attending days.
2. Caps monthly pre_subsidy_childcare_expenses at that maximum.
3. Sums capped costs across eligible children.
4. Subtracts one monthly family copayment and floors the subsidy at zero.

The subsidy pays base provider rates only, so il_ccap is a base-payment estimate; actual payments can also include quality and seniority add-ons. The PR publishes the result as monthly il_ccap, adds annual il_child_care_subsidies, and registers the Illinois amount in the federal child care subsidy aggregator.

Not modeled

• The attendance rule, under which centers and homes are paid approved eligible days rather than attended days when a child attends at least 69.5% of approved days; approved days are not observable in survey data.
• The $1 copayment for a parent who spends at least 75% of their scope of work in early childhood education and care (23 Ill. Adm. Code 2060.310(b)); the model has no occupation input.
• Longitudinal copayment reassessment during the 12-month eligibility period.
• Operational assignment of one family copayment among children and providers.
• Quality and seniority add-ons because the acquired official sources do not publish their amounts.
• Paid personal-leave payments because the model lacks provider leave-use history.
• Separate copayment schedules outside published family sizes 2 through 10; the lookup uses the approved clamp instead.

Historical notes

The modeled payment schedules begin July 1, 2025, gated by an in_effect parameter, and carry the July 1, 2026 histories. Illinois transferred program administration from IDHS to IDEC on July 1, 2026; this PR retains the existing gov.states.il.dhs.ccap path to avoid an unrelated model-tree migration. The current IDEC provider page supplies the current program context.

Files

This PR changes 69 program files: 61 added and 8 updated.

• Parameters: 36 files (34 added, 2 updated), including nine dated Table A copayment scales, the Table B rate and school-age bounds, and four provider-rate tables; the updates revise the Illinois countable-income source list and the federal CCDF subsidy-program registry.
• Variables: 17 files (14 added, 3 updated), covering copayments, income, eligibility, provider classifications, payment rates, the subsidy, and aggregation.
• Tests: 14 YAML files (12 added, 2 updated) with 115 cases, including 6 integration scenarios.
• Metadata and changelog: update policyengine_us/programs.yaml and add one towncrier fragment.

Testing

• make format: passed.
• The full Illinois CCAP test directory passes locally: 129/129 cases (the 115 in this PR plus 14 pre-existing eligibility cases). The branch is merged with current main.

Testing was scoped to the Illinois CCAP paths; no broader package or microsimulation suite ran locally.