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Subsidized Child Care Assistance Program Policy Manual Chapter 8. Parent fee REVISED 04/27/2026 12

VI. PARENT FEE ADJUSTMENTS IN NCFAST Parent fees for child care are based on the family’s ability to pay and are not intended to discourage Applicant / Recipient from using needed services.

A. Manual Parent Fee Adjustment

Adjustments are made to parent fees and levels of care during a recipient’s 12-month certification period in order to align with changes occurring in cases. These adjustments are made in order to benefit the family when there is a change to ensure that they receive the appropriate level of service, that their parent fee is appropriate and to ensure that these changes occur in a timely manner.

NC FAST adjusts parent fees and level of care changes automatically based on changes made to cases within the system. There are some situations in which adjustment of the parent fee or level of care change in NC FAST does not align per current policy. To ensure that these adjustments do align correctly based on current policy; functionality is available within NC FAST to manually adjust parent fees when the system does not align the changes per policy. The child care worker must review the Update Parent Fee Screen to access and to accept or adjust the update if correct.

1. Update Parent Fee Screen

The Update Parent Fee decision screen is automatically populated when a new decision is assessed. The child care worker must review the Update Parent Fee Screen to review and to accept or adjust the update if correct.

2. Manual Parent Fee Adjustment

The manual parent fee adjustment functionality should only be used in the following scenarios:

• Child is beginning or ending school. • Immediate change of child care providers (can be due to