The New Hampshire Executive Council quietly cleared one of the most consequential childcare policy items of the year on Wednesday, approving a contract with the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy to conduct the state’s Market Rate Survey and Narrow Cost Analysis. Those two technical studies are not the kind of items that draw a crowd to the State House, but they are the data foundation that determines how much federal money flows to New Hampshire for child care subsidies and how much working families pay out of pocket through the state’s Child Care Scholarship Program. The vote, as reported by the New Hampshire Bulletin, reverses months of executive-branch delay that had pushed the project dangerously close to a federal deadline.

For a state that already runs one of New England’s tightest childcare markets, the stakes are large and immediate. Every three years, the federal government redetermines how much money to send New Hampshire for childcare subsidies. The size of that check, distributed through the federal Child Care and Development Fund, depends on a statistical analysis of statewide childcare costs and a plan for how the federal dollars will be used. If New Hampshire shows up to that federal funding cycle without a clean, federally compliant survey, the state risks an underfunded scholarship program, higher parent copays, and reduced reimbursement rates for the providers Granite Staters rely on to staff classrooms and home daycares.

The Long Road Through Executive Council

The Carsey School contract did not arrive at Wednesday’s meeting cold. State officials originally brought it before the Executive Council on March 25, when several councilors balked at the level of UNH’s indirect costs. Indirect costs are the overhead percentage a university bakes into any contract to cover administrative services, building utilities, and the broader research infrastructure that supports a project like a statewide market survey. Several councilors, including those representing rural districts where every state contract dollar is scrutinized, said the indirect rate was too high relative to comparable contracts.

It is a recurring theme. The same Council has fought repeatedly with UNH over indirect costs even while approving other contracts with the university on the same day. The pattern is not so much hostility to UNH as it is a determined effort to push down state contracting costs at a time when the legislature is debating tax policy, energy bills, and rural-hospital subsidies. On March 25, the Market Rate Survey contract was pulled.

What changed between March and Wednesday was a smaller price tag, a tighter timeline, and a clearer recognition that the federal deadline was approaching. The state will now pay the Carsey School more than $5,000 less than originally planned, and only after the contract is completed. The reduced price comes with reduced flexibility: analysts will have less time to complete the survey and analyze the results before the final report must be sent to Department of Health and Human Services officials by April 15 of next year. That report feeds the next Child Care and Development Fund plan, which is due to the federal government by July 1, 2027.

What the Two Surveys Actually Do

The Market Rate Survey is the more familiar of the two studies. It collects information from providers across the state about tuition rates, program capacity, hours of operation, and other operating data. The state uses that data to figure out where the “market” for childcare actually sits in each region, which is essential because reimbursement rates for the scholarship program are pegged to a percentile of provider tuition. If the survey understates true tuition, the scholarship program covers less of what families pay and providers eat the difference. If it overstates tuition, the federal government may push back on the methodology.

The Narrow Cost Analysis is more recent and more sophisticated. Rather than just capturing what providers charge, it captures what it costs them to deliver care at a quality level the state considers acceptable. The gap between tuition and true cost matters because many providers operate on margins so thin that they cannot raise prices to cover compliance, staffing, and curriculum costs without losing the very families they serve. The Narrow Cost Analysis surfaces those gaps, giving DHHS a more honest picture of where the subsidy rate falls short.

Together, the two studies feed three downstream decisions. They determine what parents pay as a cost share in the Child Care Scholarship Program. They shape the biennial Child Care and Development Fund plan that New Hampshire submits to the federal government. And, indirectly, they influence how much federal money New Hampshire actually receives in the next funding cycle.

A 2024 Survey That Did Not Meet Federal Standards

Jackie Cowell, executive director of Early Learning New Hampshire, told the Bulletin that the last survey, conducted in spring 2024, ran into trouble. New Hampshire received a 53.2% response rate from 393 providers, below the federally allowable threshold for an approved market rate survey methodology. The state had to seek a waiver to use the data at all.

Several factors contributed. The 2024 contract went to Brodsky Research and Consulting, a Colorado firm new to the New Hampshire market. Providers, many of them small home-based operators or independent center directors, were uneasy about sharing detailed financials with an out-of-state vendor they did not know. Cowell said some providers also felt that participation was tied implicitly to other state opportunities, including grant eligibility, which created a coercive flavor that hurt the data quality.

“People didn’t necessarily know if they could trust their information with that contractor, because there were all sorts of financials they had to share,” Cowell said. “My understanding is that people felt threatened that if they didn’t do it, they couldn’t apply for certain grants. That really put a bad taste in people’s mouths.”

To fix the trust problem, state officials moved the work back in-house, in a sense. The Carsey School at UNH runs the New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium, a research network that has worked with the state’s childcare field on prior projects and has long-standing relationships with providers from Berlin to Nashua. Jess Carson, professor and director of the Center for Social Policy and Practice at Carsey, will serve as the project’s campus director.

“If we are not paying attention to what the full spread of costs look like across the state, it’s going to be really hard for the state to be able to calculate and support a reimbursement rate that makes sense,” Carson said.

Technology, Trust, and Response Rates

Provider response is not only about trust. It is also about logistics. Survey participation rates in 2024 suffered from a clunky user experience inside New Hampshire Connections, the online portal childcare providers use to submit data, manage scholarships, and complete state-mandated reporting. Carson said that on top of trust concerns, providers complained that the survey itself was confusing, slow, and difficult to navigate.

“You can’t ask people to fill out something if it’s confusing to them, or if it takes them forever, or if they feel like they don’t understand where their data is going or being used for, and then just expect them to do it,” she said.

Some of that has been addressed since 2024. The state has upgraded portions of its information technology systems supporting New Hampshire Connections, and on April 15 the Executive Council approved over $75,000 for a Salesforce tool intended to make the next survey easier for providers to complete. Whether those investments translate into a survey response rate that meets federal thresholds will not be known until the results come in next spring.

Why Granite State Families Should Pay Attention

Childcare may feel like a back-office state contract, but the consequences land directly on family budgets. The N.H. Child Care Scholarship Program helps lower- and middle-income parents pay for licensed care, and the percentage of cost that scholarship covers is tied to the same Market Rate Survey numbers being collected over the next year. A weaker survey can mean a smaller subsidy, a higher copay, and a thinner provider network as small operators decide they cannot afford to stay in business.

For an industry already squeezed by workforce shortages, insurance costs, and inflation, those margins matter. We have covered this pressure repeatedly in 2026, most recently in our piece on stalled childcare workforce funding and the 73,000 New Hampshire kids in limbo and our coverage of a tabled childcare workforce grant inside the Executive Council process. The pattern is consistent. New Hampshire’s childcare market is short on supply, short on workforce, and short on slack, which means every administrative dollar and every percentage point of federal reimbursement counts.

There is also a regulatory tail. The Carsey contract feeds the biennial Child Care and Development Fund plan, which in turn shapes everything from how licensure inspectors prioritize their visits to how DHHS structures targeted subsidies for infant care and special-needs slots. A delayed or incomplete plan creates ripple effects that families do not see in the news but feel at the cash register six months later. For families navigating the related zoning and supply-side pieces of the puzzle, our coverage of HB 1195, the childcare zoning-by-right bill explains how the legislature is trying to attack the supply side at the same time.

What Happens Next

With the Wednesday approval in hand, the Carsey team has roughly eleven months to design the survey, distribute it to New Hampshire’s licensed childcare providers, collect responses, and analyze the results. The final report must reach DHHS by April 15, 2027. DHHS then has until July 1, 2027, to fold the analysis into the next federal Child Care and Development Fund plan.

In the interim, expect targeted communication from Carsey and from Early Learning New Hampshire to providers across the state explaining what the survey is, why participation matters, and how the data will be used. The success or failure of this cycle will hinge on whether the field shows up with completed responses. If response rates clear the federal threshold this time, New Hampshire avoids another waiver and locks in a stronger basis for its federal funding ask. If they do not, the state will be filing yet another methodology exception with the federal government, and the families who depend on the Child Care Scholarship Program will end up paying for it one copay at a time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Market Rate Survey and why does it matter?

The Market Rate Survey is a statistical analysis of childcare tuition and program capacity across New Hampshire. It is used to set the reimbursement rate for the state's Child Care Scholarship Program and to determine how much federal money New Hampshire receives through the Child Care and Development Fund.

Who is the Carsey School and why was it chosen?

The Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire runs the New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium, an in-state research network with long-standing relationships in the childcare field. State officials chose Carsey after a 2024 contract with an out-of-state vendor produced poor response rates and federal compliance problems.

Why did the Executive Council delay approval for months?

Several councilors objected to UNH's indirect cost rate on the original contract proposal, a recurring concern about university overhead on state contracts. The revised contract approved Wednesday reduced the cost by more than $5,000 and shifted to payment only after completion.

What happens if the survey misses federal thresholds again?

The state would have to seek another methodology waiver from the federal government, as it did after the 2024 survey produced only a 53.2% response rate. Repeated waivers can weaken New Hampshire's position in the next federal funding cycle and reduce subsidies for working families.

When will the new survey results be available?

The final Market Rate Survey and Narrow Cost Analysis report is due to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services by April 15, 2027. DHHS will then incorporate the findings into its next Child Care and Development Fund plan, which is due to the federal government by July 1, 2027.

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