Audit of the Community Day Care Center of Lawrence, Inc. (CDCCL)

This is a Massachusetts State Auditor performance audit of Community Day Care Center of Lawrence, covering July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019.

“I am pleased to provide this performance audit of Community Day Care Center of Lawrence, Inc.”

The audit focused on whether the organization properly checked eligibility for state-subsidized child care and entered the required information into the state system.

“In this performance audit, we examined CDCCL’s compliance with requirements related to eligibility for subsidized childcare.”

Subsidized child care helps eligible families afford care, and the rules are meant to make sure help goes to families who qualify.

“Eligibility is primarily based on service need, family size, and monthly income.”

If you are a parent or taxpayer, the key takeaway is that this audit did not find reportable problems in how this provider handled eligibility for subsidized child care.

“Our audit revealed no instances of noncompliance by CDCCL that must be reported under generally accepted government auditing standards.”

The auditor concluded that CDCCL did determine subsidized child care eligibility according to the cited rules and entered eligibility information into the state child care financial assistance system.

“Did CDCCL determine eligibility for subsidized childcare in accordance with Sections 10.03 and 10.04 of Title 606 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations and enter eligibility information in the childcare financial assistance application maintained by the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC)?”

The report does not list corrective actions or recommendations, because it did not identify reportable noncompliance.

“Our audit revealed no instances of noncompliance by CDCCL that must be reported under generally accepted government auditing standards.”

This matters because CDCCL handled a large amount of public child care funding and served many children and families during the audit period.

“During the audit period, the Child Care Circuit (the CCRR operated by CDCCL) made payments to approximately 300 childcare providers on behalf of voucher recipients, of whom there was an average of 8,246 children per month in fiscal year 2018 and 8,594 children per month in fiscal year 2019.”

A child care voucher is a state subsidy certificate that says how much approved care a child can receive; families may use it with providers that accept vouchers.

“Childcare vouchers are certificates that show the number of hours and days per week for which a child has been approved for subsidized childcare.”