Center for Federal Accountability

HHS proposes to repeal most of its child welfare planning rules and estimates a 61 percent cut in state and tribal reporting time

The Administration for Children and Families would remove 45 CFR part 1357, which sets out what states and tribes must report to receive title IV-B child welfare funds, and estimates the change would cut reporting time by 60.78 percent. CFA's recomputation confirms the headline figures but finds small arithmetic slips, and the estimate does not count the tribes that would gain the most relief. Comments close November 4, 2026.

2026-10-06 · Administration for Children and Families, Health and Human Services Department · Information · Docket ACF-2026-0562

On October 5, 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services published a proposed rule that would remove and reserve 45 CFR part 1357, the regulations the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has used since 1996 to tell states and tribes what to put in their plans and reports for child welfare money under title IV-B of the Social Security Act (91 FR 63226). Four requirements from part 1357 would move to the general plan rules in 45 CFR 1355.21, and two other sections of part 1355 would also be removed. The proposal carries RIN 0970-AD32 and is docket ACF-2026-0562 on regulations.gov. Comments must be received by November 4, 2026. No comments had been posted when CFA's refresh checked the docket on October 5. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. signed the proposal, and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs determined it is a significant action under Executive Order 12866 (91 FR 63238).

## What would change

Title IV-B pays for child welfare services (subpart 1) and for family support, preservation, reunification and adoption services (subpart 2). To receive the money, an agency files a five-year Child and Family Services Plan, an Annual Progress and Services Report each year, and an annual expenditure form, the CFS-101 (91 FR 63226–27). ACF says the part 1357 rules refer to dates that have passed, repeat or were overtaken by later amendments to the statute, or impose reporting that does "not meaningfully support Federal program oversight." It says the proposal "does not propose any new requirements" (91 FR 63227).

Under the proposal, tribes that receive only subpart 1 funds would no longer be required by regulation to file a five-year plan, an annual report or a CFS-101 (91 FR 63233, 63241). For all agencies, the rules would stop requiring a vision statement, objectives, subpart 1 goals, narrative baseline data on family needs, descriptions of stakeholder consultation and service coordination, and a description of the agency's quality assurance system. Agencies could report on the Chafee foster care transition program and Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act grants separately instead of in one consolidated plan. ACF says the statutory requirements behind many of these items still apply.

Kept, in new places in § 1355.21: the ban on denying services because of income or length of residence; a staff development and training plan; a state's description of its arrangements with tribes to protect Indian children; and the tribal funding formula and the documents a tribal organization must file to show it is authorized to apply (proposed § 1355.21(c)–(e), 91 FR 63241–42).

## Why ACF says it is acting

ACF points to the Supporting America's Children and Families Act (Pub. L. 118-258), signed January 4, 2025, which requires the Department to cut the hours needed to comply with title IV-B by at least 15 percent and to modify subpart 2 reporting for tribes whose allotment is no more than $50,000 a year (91 FR 63227, 63239). It cites a November 2025 report from the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation finding that annual reports averaged 256 pages and that 41 to 78 percent of each agency's report repeated the previous year's text (note 1). ACF received 23 comments on a July 2025 request for input (docket ACF-2025-0038) and held four tribal consultations; one commenter reported that a tribe receiving $5,000 a year spent $7,000 a year on its plan and report (91 FR 63227–28, 63239).

## The numbers

ACF's baseline is the burden approved for the current information collection, OMB control number 0970-0426: 49,350 hours a year across 235 agencies (Table 1). It estimates 19,355.07 hours if the rule is finalized (Table 2), a 60.78 percent reduction, worth $1,396,520.64 a year to states and tribes at a loaded wage of $46.56 an hour. ACF staff time would fall from 5,082 hours to 1,993.16, saving $340,204.83 (91 FR 63239–41). CFA recomputed both tables and the percentages, and they hold.

CFA found small inconsistencies. The document gives the projected annual cost as $901,258; 19,355.07 hours at $46.56 is $901,172. The hours saved are 29,994.93, given as 29,994 in the text and 29,995 in Table 3. One line adds "2,390.1" hours for the CFS-101 where the table shows 390.1. And the stated 22.3 percent rise in the wage rate, from $18.52 to $22.64 an hour, works out to 22.2 percent. None changes the headline result.

## CFA's observations

These are CFA's observations from the published text. The 235 agencies in the estimate are the 56 states and territories and 179 tribes that receive subpart 2 funds (91 FR 63239). The tribes that receive only subpart 1 funds, which the proposal says would no longer need to file the plan, report or CFS-101 at all, do not appear to be counted, so their relief is not quantified. ACF's figure for its own staff time is exactly 39.22 percent of the baseline, which suggests it applied the agencies' percentage rather than estimating federal review time separately.

The statute names a separate duty for tribes with allotments of $50,000 or less. The proposal says removing part 1357 meets that mandate but does not contain a provision specific to those tribes. It says baseline data narratives are no longer needed because agencies now have "automated information systems," but it does not name the federal data collections ACF will rely on instead. Its discussion of alternatives says agencies "are not currently reporting this information," a statement the document does not reconcile with its own estimate of the reporting time the rule would save.

The text also has drafting errors. The required summary under 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4) is cited as "[INSERT REGULATIONS.GOV CITE]." The preamble puts the training plan in § 1355.21(c)(3) but later cites it as § 1355.21(d), and says state–tribal arrangements would be § 1355.21(d)(2) while the rule text places them in (d)(1) (91 FR 63226, 63233, 63235, 63238, 63241–42).

## CFA's records on HHS

HHS holds a "Minor" grade on CFA's agency scoreboard, with a composite score of 81.36 based on 4 areas, for the period dated October 1, 2026; the government-wide composite is 83.38. The grade does not measure grant reporting or child welfare programs. CFA's linkage report ties 86 Federal Register documents to ACF, a list that includes this proposal and so is broader than privacy notices, and CFA's crawl has not collected any privacy impact assessments from ACF websites.

## What to watch

Whether ACF revises the plan and report instructions and the information collection under OMB control number 0970-0426 to match the final rule, and whether that renewal carries the 60.78 percent figure or a new estimate that counts subpart 1-only tribes.

Whether the final rule adds anything specific for tribes with allotments of $50,000 or less, as the 2025 law requires.

Which data ACF uses in place of the narratives it would drop when it conducts Child and Family Services Reviews, and whether the drafting errors are corrected.

Comments can be submitted at regulations.gov under docket ACF-2026-0562 or RIN 0970-AD32 by November 4, 2026. ACF says all comments will be posted without change, including any personal information.

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