Description:
H.R. 2480 would reauthorize and amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) and title II of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform Act of 1978. The bill would specifically authorize the appropriation of $580 million in 2020 and whatever amounts are necessary for each year from 2021 through 2025 for programs in those acts. The authorizations for those programs expired at the end of 2015, although the Department of Health and Human Services has continued to allocate funds for those programs. In 2019, that allocation was about $197 million. The bill would reauthorize and amend: CAPTA state grants and child abuse discretionary activities (title I of the bill), Community-based child abuse prevention (title II of the bill), and Adoption opportunities (title III of the bill). For this estimate, CBO assumes that H.R. 2480 will be enacted before the beginning of fiscal year 2020 and that the amounts authorized for 2020 will be appropriated. For years 2021 through 2025, CBO estimates the authorization amount by inflating the 2020 amount consistent with CBO’s projections of inflation in the baseline. Estimated outlays are based on historical spending patterns for those or similar programs. On that basis, CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost $2.1 billion over the 2020-2024 period and $1.6 billion after 2024. The costs of the legislation, detailed in Table 1, fall within budget function 500 (education, training, employment, and social services).
