Q & A
CACFP Questions & Answers - Advance Childcare, Inc.
CACFP CLAIM REIMBURSEMENTS:
How is my CACFP reimbursement calculated?
States have a couple of different options on how they calculate your CACFP reimbursement. However, each option essentially earns the same amount.
Why is it called a “reimbursement”?
USDA is “reimbursing” you towards your food service costs versus just paying you a monetary incentive to participate. You must show that you have legitimate food services expenses in the amount of your claim for reimbursement. If you can’t, you are required to pay back that portion of your claim funds that are more than your actual food service expenses.
Is there a way for me to calculate how much I should receive?
Yes, please click the CACFP Claim Calculator farther down the page.
- Enter in the total number of children enrolled
- Enter in the total number of children enrolled who are considered low income
- Enter in the number of days you are open during the month (usually 21 to 22)
- Enter in the number of meals and snacks you serve to children on a daily basis
The claim calculator will provide you a total based on you participating under a sponsor.
How much does a Sponsor for Centers receive?
A CACFP Affiliated/Unaffiliated Sponsor earns up to 15% of your total meal reimbursement. The sponsor is not allowed to earn any fees paid to you for Cash In Lieu (CIL).
How can I increase my CACFP reimbursement legitimately?
There are several ways a child care center can earn additional CACFP Reimbursement:
- If their state pays centers a “blended rate”, you can scholarship low income children in order to increase you low income enrollment. That helps increase your low income percentage, regardless if that child is present for meals or not during a month they are legally enrolled in your center.
- If your center operates an “after-school” program, you need to be operating as an “At-Risk” program if you qualify by area eligibility. At-Risk participant meals and snacks are reimbursed at the highest rate (Free Rate).
- If your “At-Risk” program is currently serving a snack immediately after school, you definitely need to look at changing that snack to a supper:
- On the At-Risk program, you are allowed to serve supper “immediately after the traditional school day is over”…that typically means 3:30 pm, when you are typically serving a snack;
- You will typically have more children participating during a 3:30 pm supper than offering an At-Risk supper at 5:00 pm or later;
- Most schoolers are starved when they get to your center from their elementary school, so offering a supper helps the child curb their appetite better.
- As for the difference, use the Claim Calculator:
- Enter in the following numbers: 100 total enrolled children, 35 children enrolled as low income, 21 service days, 100 pm snacks
- Then take out the 100 pm snacks and enter 100 meals (suppers) under that bottom row for At-Risk
- Yes…that Total Reimbursement difference is correct! …and the reason At-Risk programs are starting to serve suppers instead of pm snack!
AT-RISK PROGRAM IN CHILD CARE CENTERS:
What is the difference between a regular after-school program and an At-Risk after-school program?
There really isn’t much difference for most child care centers ….you already perform At-Risk activities. The differences are in whether you qualify under Area Eligibility.
Listed below are general rules that must be followed:
- Your child care center must be located in an attendance zone of an elementary, middle, or high school that has an enrollment of at least 50% children receiving free/reduced price meals;
- Your (At-Risk) after school program must be totally separate from your CACFP participants. (i.e. your after-schoolers can’t be mixed in with younger CACFP children in a class room)
- You must provide an enrichment or educational activity for your At-Risk participants (i.e. you can’t just feed your after schoolers and then send them home)
- You must have a completely separate food service for meal/snack for your At-Risk participants (i.e. you must maintain separate CACFP records, such as meal count forms and menus)
Is the At-Risk after-school program year round?
Only if that schooler is attending a year round school. For the vast majority of participants, the At-Risk program is during the traditional school year, including any days school is out for bad weather, in-service and school holidays/breaks.
CACFP DUTIES OF A CHILD CARE CENTER:
If I go under an Unaffiliated Sponsor, what am I specifically responsible for?
In general, you are responsible for the following duties:
- maintaining child/parent records (enrollment, household income)
- maintain child attendance and meal counts in the PC Tablet,
- menu creation and scheduling;
- shopping for all pre-scheduled meals/snacks;
- calculating the amount to prepare of each meal component;
- submitting CACFP expenses.
- training your staff;
- maintaining CACFP reports
How does Advance Child Care, Inc. CACFP Management System make this easier for me?
A lot of the tasks listed above can be automated and/or streamlined. For instance:
- maintaining child/parent records (enrollment, household income)
- When you first enroll a child, the parent can input child data and household income information online or fil out twopaper forms that you simply scan to us.
- This data is now in CACFP Systems and allows us to recertify most children each year with just a parent signature and date of signature.
- You will enter that newly enrolled child in the PC Tablet by typing in their name and birthday and selecting their classroom assignment.
- Now that child can be moved to other classrooms and/or withdrawn directly through the PC Tablet.
- maintain child attendance and meal counts in the PC Tablet
- Simply mark a child (if present) at each meal service in the tablet
- menu creation and scheduling
- Create daily menus in CACFP Systems by selecting pre-created meal components from each food group.
- Schedule your menus daily or for any period of days in the future
- Build a 5 to 30 day cycle of specific daily menus and then repeat that cycle an unlimited number of times. Great way to build quarterly menus!
- shopping for all pre-scheduled meal/snacks
- CACFP Systems will help build your cook a shopping list of items to purchase and in what purchase quantities
- calculating the amount to prepare of each meal component
- CACFP Systems will assist the cook during meal preparation by calculating how much of each meal component to prepare and how much of each food component to place on each age-group child’s plate.
- submitting CACFP expenses.
- Simply scan all food receipts/invoices to Advance Child Care, Inc. for CACFP Systems to maintain a monthly ledger of food and kitchen supply purchases.
- Have your CACFP staff clock in an out on the CACFP time clock to maintain an electronic time distribution report of CACFP Labor on budgeted staff.
- training your staff
- Use CACFP Systems training module to train your staff annually over pertinent CACFP and Civil Rights policies and procedures through various training styles.
- maintaining CACFP report
- Use CACFP Systems to manage all reports in electronic format with automatic archiving on expiration dates and “print on demand” capabilities.
- CACFP Systems alerts the center when to validate reports that require a digital signature
- All electronic reports are maintained for a period of 3 years after the program year.
TRAINING:
Do you provide CACFP Training for my staff?
We provide different types of CACFP Training and are always expanding our offerings. You gain access to these training modules through the Training Menu in CACFP Systems. Currently, we have both Self Study and Group Discussion Sessions available for Civil Rights, CACFP and several child care oriented trainings. All trainings allow you to track employees who took the training, the date and location of the training, issues a certificate for successful completion.
Is there a deadline for CACFP Training to be completed by?
All employees who interact with children during food service activities (eating, marking meal counts, etc.) or are assigned other food service activities (cook), need to take CACFP and Civil Rights training during each program year (which runs from October 1st through September 30th). We strongly suggest that each child care center conduct a group training sometime in mid to late October of each year to get the majority of their staff trained. Then as you hire new staff, make the self study CACFP/Civil Rights training part of your new teacher orientation. This type of scheduling guarantees that you will be training all your staff annually.
Can you take the same training every year?
Yes, you can. Civil Rights training rarely changes. However, Advance Child Care, Inc. tries to “change up” the CACFP training annually so there is less repetition of the same information.
Child and Adult Care Food Program in Texas | Call us at 903-872-5231 ext 302.
