School Readiness Rate Increase

Florida’s Office of Early Learning recently announced that School Readiness reimbursement rates were increased as of January 1, 2021. Click here find the updated maximum reimbursement rates for School Readiness children.

When determining your program’s individual reimbursement rate, your private pay rates are compared to the maximum reimbursement rates, and your reimbursement rate will be the lesser of the two. The increase in the maximum reimbursement rates requires an amendment to your current School Readiness contract (form OEL-SR 20). ELC staff are currently in the process of initiating these amendments on the Provider Portal.  This is an electronic form that you will need to sign and certify on the Provider Portal as you do with your contract each year. You will receive an e-mail from the Provider Portal alerting you when the contract amendment is ready for your signature. 

• If you have a 2020-2021 School Readiness contract, please click the blue and white  plus symbol to the left of this contract to access the contract amendment. 
• If your program is still on an extension of the 2019-2020 School Readiness contract, you will click the plus symbol to the left of the 2019-2020 contract to access the amendment form.

Your private pay rates are entered on your Provider Profile annually. You may wish to increase your private pay rates at this time to align with the increased maximum reimbursement rates attached. Please keep in mind that this will mean increasing your private pay rates for families who are not receiving School Readiness funding as well, and will require you to upload a new private pay rate sheet on the Provider Portal. To begin this process, please update the Private Pay Rates tab on your 2020-2021 Provider Profile and upload the new rate sheet on the document tab. If you have already completed your Provider Profile for the 2021-2022 program year, be sure to update your rates there as well. 

Please note that if you have SR contracts with multiple counties, you will need to complete this process for each contract. If you are increasing your private pay rates, these new rates cannot be activated until the contract amendment for the January 1st increase has been certified, so please be sure to sign it as soon as possible. Your Provider Relations Specialist will be happy to assist you with updating your profile and completing the contract amendment. As always, please feel free to contact your assigned Provider Relations Specialist with any questions.