Child care and development services: facilities.

Existing law establishes the Child Care Facilities Revolving Fund in the State Treasury to provide funding for the renovation, repair, improvement, or purchase of child care facilities for lease to school districts and contracting agencies that provide child care and development services pursuant to the Child Care and Development Services Act. This bill would instead specify that the fund be used to make loans to eligible borrowers for the purchase, development, construction, expansion, renovation, repair, or improvement of licensed child care. The bill would authorize the Superintendent of Public Instruction to transfer federal funds appropriated for child care facilities into the fund. Existing law requires the Superintendent to submit a report to specified agencies detailing certain information relating to the fund, including a projection of the lease payments collected. This bill would instead require the Superintendent to include a projection of the lease and loan payments collected, and would require the Superintendent to include specified additional information in the report. The bill would require the State Department of Education to utilize the capital financing expertise of the child care financial intermediary program to administer the fund, and to adopt regulations to implement these procedures and manage the fund. Existing law requires the Superintendent to contract with a nonprofit organization to serve as a financial intermediary to undertake activities designed to increase funds available from the private and public sectors for the financing of child day care facilities. This bill would require the financial intermediary to coordinate private sources of capital with the Child Care Facilities Revolving Fund instead of the Department of Housing and Community Development and the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, and to provide capital financing and facility development expertise and assistance to the Child Care Facilities Revolving Fund. The bill would delete obsolete references in those provisions to regional resource centers. By authorizing the expenditure of funds in the Child Care Facilities Revolving Fund, a continuously appropriated fund, for a new purpose, and adding a new source of revenue for deposit into the fund, the bill would make an appropriation.