There are several possible resources that Tribes can use to collect the information needed for the Market Rate Survey. Some of the resources may have all the data that is needed. Other resources may be able to provide only some of the information. Some agencies may provide assistance to the Tribe in completing its own Market Rate Survey.

State Child Care Administrators

Each state has a designated agency that operates the State's CCDF prograrn. A list of State Child Care Administrators is provided in Appendix B. As each state must conduct a Market Rate Survey within two years of the current approved plan, the Tribe may choose to use some or all of the state's data. It is important to know how the State conducted their survey and if the data is useful for Tribes. Here are some of the questions to ask:

• How does the state define the types of care provided to children—part-time, full-time care, etc? Are the State's definitions the same as the Tribe's for payments to child care providers?
• Did the State include information from tribal child care providers in the survey? Did they survey non-tribal child care providers who provide services to tribal children?
• Did the State include unregulated caregivers m the survey? How were relatives caring for CCDF supported children covered in the survey?
• Can the State provide data for a certain geographical area or only for the entire state? If the data can be broken down into smaller areas, what are these areas? Can the State supply data by county or zip codes?
• Did the Market Rate Survey include the costs of registration fees or activity fees charged by some providers in the market area? These fees affect the cost of care.
• What is the State's policy on including/excluding the child care provider's absentee policy in the cost of care? In other words, if the provider requires that the parent pay for care when the child is absent or sick, how did the state Market Rate Survey account for this?
• How does the State use the data from the Market Rate Survey in determining what the CCDF reimbursement rate will be? What is the State's cut-off percentile for families accessing care? For instance, can CCDF families access 75% of the child care providers in their area with the funding support that is available?
• Does the State have a differential payment rate paying separate rates for different age groups and/or for differing levels of quality service?

After collecting the answers to these questions, the Tribe can decide whether or not the information in the State's Market Rate Survey is useful for its purposes.

Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies

Most states have a network of Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) community-based agencies. These agencies collect and maintain information on child care providers in the local areas. The CCR&R agency keeps extensive data on all types of child care providers: fees, location, vacancies, hours of care, ages of children cared for, licensure, contact persons and much more. This data may be available by zip code, city or by county. Tribes can contact the State CCR&R Network to get the names and contact persons of the agencies in their area.

Tribal Information

Depending on the specific characteristics of the Tribe, information needed to complete the Market Rate Survey may be available in a tribal office. This information may include the:

• names and addresses of some or all child care providers serving Indian children on or near the reservation, or service area.
• methodology used in the past to determine sliding fee scales, family income eligibility, and reimbursements to providers of CCDF supported children.
• names of persons on or off the reservation who could be of assistance in compiling the information needed.

Tribes in Alaska, California, and Oklahoma, the central offices of other Tribal Grantees may want to contact neighboring Tribes to compare data.

There are several decisions for the Tribe to make before deciding to use information from outside sources or to conduct their own Market Rate Survey. These decisions will be based on the following questions:

• Is the data collected in the State's Market Rate Survey useful for the Tribe?
• Does the local Child Care Resource and Referral agency have information about child care providers who serve tribal families?
• Is the service area defined in the tribe's CCDF grant the same as the geographic area for the Market Rate Survey? If not, what geographic area will be used?
• Can the data from an outside source be broken down to the area described by the Tribe as their service area or survey area?

Having looked at the issues described in I. Identifying the Market and receiving the information from existing resources described in II. Determining Potential Resources, the Tribe can now decide whether or not to conduct its own survey. Chapter III, Developing the Survey, will assist Tribes in conducting their own survey or developing a survey which incorporates data provided by other sources.

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