Reforming Federal Reporting and Assessments in Child Welfare

State and tribal child welfare agencies spend about 49,350 hours a year on federal planning and progress reports, by the government’s own estimate. A new proposal from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) would bring that down to about 19,355.

The reports are tied to title IV-B of the Social Security Act, which funds family support, family preservation, reunification and adoption-support services. To get the money, an agency files a five-year Child and Family Services Plan (CFSP), an Annual Progress and Services Report (APSR) and an annual expense form, the CFS-101.

ACF proposes removing the regulations in 45 CFR part 1357, saying they refer to dates that have passed, were overtaken by later changes to the law, repeat what the statute already requires, or add paperwork that does not meaningfully help federal oversight. Four requirements would move to the title IV-E and IV-B plan rules, and a section describing child and family services review principles would be dropped as unenforceable. ACF says the proposal adds no new requirements.

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At a glance (ACF estimates, 235 agencies: 56 states, territories and insular areas plus 179 tribes) — APSR: 55 reporting requirements → 7; 19,270 → 2,451 hours a year. CFSP: 56 requirements every five years → 32; 28,905 → 16,514 hours a year. CFS-101: 3 → 1; 1,175 → 390 hours a year.

The push comes from the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act, signed January 4, 2025, which requires HHS to cut title IV-B compliance hours by at least 15 percent and to ease reporting for tribes with allotments of $50,000 or less a year.

Comments are due November 4, 2026, at www.regulations.gov under docket ACF-2026-0562 (RIN 0970-AD32). Comments are posted publicly as submitted. Contact: Jennifer Haight, 202-329-6464.

Federal Register filing: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/05/2026-20329/reforming-federal-reporting-and-assessments-in-child-welfare

This is a Notice Nearby publisher-desk Federal brief — a short in-house summary of a public federal filing. It is not official agency minutes, not a newspaper story, and not Legal Publication. It does not satisfy a statutory notice requirement.