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programs typically care for less than 1.5% of all children in care in the subsidy program. For licensed-exempt providers to participate, they must be either government owned and operated or a seasonal camp for school aged children. An informal caregiver can also participate but is not typically a provider that would market themselves for services or otherwise collect a fee for services. Including these unlicensed providers would ultimately skew analysis in a way that would negatively impact license providers and their markets. Also, licensed-exempt providers that participate are reimbursed at the same level as child care centers and informal caregivers are reimbursed at the same level as family child care learning homes. c. What assumptions and data did the Lead Agency use to determine the cost of care at the base level of quality (e.g., ratios, group size, staff compensations, staff training, etc.)? The Lead Agency defines the base level of quality as 1 star under its Quality Rated program. Provider level data was filtered only for providers rated 1 star; this data was further filtered by provider type, geography (as defined by Market Rate Zone), and child age (for classroom-level data). The Lead Agency included 725 providers rated one star in the analysis described in Section 4.2.5.a. The distribution of measurement values for each filtered data set was examined, and statistics supporting variations between data sets were identified by the Lead Agency to inform cost model assumptions. Major assumptions in the cost model include the following: group size, hours of care, number of children per classroom adult, maximum number of lead teachers per class, maximum number of assistant teachers per class, number of target age classrooms per facility, number of total classrooms per facility, percent of lead teachers by education credential (at the facility), percentage of assistant teachers by education credential (at the facility), center director or family home provider education credential, number of annual professional

development training hours for center directors (or family home providers), number of annual professional development training hours for lead teachers, number of annual professional development training hours for assistant teachers, hourly wage by credential level for center directors, hourly wage by credential level for lead teachers, hourly wage by credential level for assistant teachers, effective hourly wage for family home providers, non-teaching staff hourly wages, non-teaching staffing levels, mandatory benefits rate, additional benefits rate, cost per child meal or snack, number of meals and snacks offered per day, percentage of children served meals and snacks, transportation cost per child- trip, number of child-trips offered per day, percentage of children served by transportation, education supplies cost per child, office supplies and miscellaneous operations expense per child, lease/mortgage cost per square foot, utilities cost per square foot, insurance cost per square foot, and maintenance cost per square foot, square footage allocated per child, site-level cost per child for telephone/internet, site-level cost per child for professional services, instructional assessment cost per child, percentage of children assessed, annualized replacement cost per child for durable education equipment, and annualized replacement cost per child for other durable equipment. Among One-Star providers, virtually all the assumptions listed above were varied by provider type (CCLCs versus FCCLHs). Assumptions for hourly wages, facilities, and site- level costs were also varied by geography (MRZ). Assumptions for group size, number of children per classroom adult, percentage of children served by transportation, square footage allocated per child, percentage of children assessed, and annual replacement cost for durable education equipment were varied by child age.