SB 702 West Virginia Senate · 2025 Regular Session

Relating to payment rates for child care services

This bill requires West Virginia's Bureau for Family Assistance to annually increase base payment rates for child care providers starting September 2025, adjusting them each year based on the Consumer Price Index (inflation rate). It also mandates a study on implementing performance-based contracts - where providers might receive extra payments for quality improvements - to assess impacts on outcomes like kindergarten readiness. The study must be completed and reported to the Legislative Oversight Commission by December 15, 2025. These changes directly affect licensed child care providers and the families relying on subsidized care.

Issues: ✓ Labor & Employment

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Mar 2025

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Mar 5, 2025 Last action Mar 19, 2025

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Introduced Version → Committee Substitute · 3 edits

MINOR

The bill text was converted from an introduced draft to a committee substitute version, which includes minor formatting cleanup and a slight rewording of the state plan requirements to explicitly list affordability, availability, and quality. The substantive policy content regarding rates, study requirements, and reporting deadlines remains unchanged.

REQUIREMENT

The language describing federal goals was slightly expanded to explicitly list 'affordability, availability, and quality' instead of the original shorter phrasing, though the meaning is effectively the same.

TECHNICAL

Minor formatting and layout changes were made to convert the document from a plain text draft to a structured HTML-style legislative page, including the addition of navigation links and footer information.

Original draft metadata, including the introduction date of March 5, 2025, and committee referral notes, were replaced with committee substitute reporting information dated March 19, 2025.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Mar 19, 2025

Committee

To Finance

upper

Mar 19, 2025

Upper · Passed

Committee substitute reported, but first to Finance

upper

Mar 5, 2025

Committee

To Health and Human Resources

upper

Mar 5, 2025

Introduced

Introduced in Senate

upper

Mar 5, 2025

Committee

To Health and Human Resources then Finance

upper

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors