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CWELCC guide · autumn 2026
Two funding systems, one payroll: CWELCC and school-age care.
A centre that runs infant through kindergarten rooms and a before and after school program is funded twice, out of two separate envelopes, under two sets of rules — with one lease, one hydro bill, one supervisor and one set of floaters. Nobody splits that for you. The methodology you choose is yours to document, and it is one of the first things a reconciliation looks at.
Where the line falls
CWELCC is an age test, not a programme test.
The dividing line is statutory. Under O. Reg. 137/15, s. 1 (1), an eligible child for the Canada-Wide system is any child until the last day of the month in which the child turns six — and, up until June 30 in a calendar year, any child who turns six between January 1 and June 30 of that year and is enrolled in a licensed infant, toddler, preschool or kindergarten group, a licensed family age group, or home child care.
Two consequences follow, and both of them cost money when they are missed.
The second limb is conditional on the room, not the child. A child who turns six in February and sits in a licensed kindergarten group keeps the reduced base fee to June 30. The same child, in a licensed primary/junior school age group, keeps it only to the last day of February. In Peel the 2026 guideline sets this out as two separate tables for exactly that reason.
Kindergarten children in a before and after school programme are CWELCC children. Age decides it, not the fact that the programme runs from 7 to 9 and 3 to 6. For a centre that enrolled in CWELCC after December 31, 2024, s. 77.2(2) of O. Reg. 137/15 caps those fees at the amounts in its Table for your own service area — in Peel CA$13.35 a day for kindergarten before-and-after and CA$12.27 for school-age, in Halton CA$13.26 and CA$12.22, in Toronto CA$15.26 and CA$12.55 — so the same room can hold children on three different fee bases at once.
The short version
Children under six are funded through CWELCC cost-based funding. Children six to twelve are funded through a separate school-age programme. The wage floors are the same in both. The money is not, the reconciliations are not, and the costs of serving the six-to-twelves are expressly ineligible under CWELCC.
The age categories
The ratios that do the splitting are in the regulation.
| Licensed age group | Age range | Staff to children | Maximum group | CWELCC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infant | Younger than 18 months | 3 to 10 | 10 | Eligible |
| Toddler | 18 months to under 30 months | 1 to 5 | 15 | Eligible |
| Preschool | 30 months to under 6 years | 1 to 8 | 24 | Eligible |
| Kindergarten | 44 months to under 7 years | 1 to 13 | 26 | Eligible while the child is |
| Primary/junior school age | 68 months to under 13 years | 1 to 15 | 30 | Eligible while the child is |
| Junior school age | 9 years to under 13 years | 1 to 20 | 20 | No |
Those five columns are Schedule 1 to O. Reg. 137/15, and they are not only a licensing matter. The staff-to-child ratios and the maximum group sizes are the weights the province uses to prorate shared costs between the eligible and the ineligible side of a centre, which is why a change in your licensed mix changes your eligible share of the rent as well as your ratios on the floor.
The split
One centre, three different percentages.
The provincial cost-based funding guideline requires that, where costs are incurred to serve both eligible children aged 0 to 5 and ineligible children aged 6 to 12, a reasonable methodology be used to split eligible from ineligible costs. It then sets out what a reasonable methodology could look like, and the striking thing about it is that the driver changes with the cost type:
- Program staffing and operating costs — weight operating spaces by age group using the staff-to-child ratio from the regulation and the typical hours of service for each age group, counting only eligible age groups in the numerator.
- Supervisor costs — weight operating spaces by the staff-to-child ratio alone. Hours of service drop out.
- Accommodation costs — weight licensed spaces by the maximum group size ratios. Operating spaces drop out, and so do hours.
- Home child care agencies — divide eligible children enrolled by total children enrolled.
The guideline's own worked example is a legacy centre with 15 toddler spaces and 30 primary/junior school age spaces, at typical hours of 10.5 and 4.5 a day. It produces three answers from the same room list:
| Cost type | Weighting | Calculation | Eligible share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Program staffing and operating | Operating spaces × ratio × typical hours | [15 × (1/5) × 10.5] ÷ ([15 × (1/5) × 10.5] + [30 × (1/15) × 4.5]) = 31.5 ÷ 40.5 | 78% |
| Supervisor | Operating spaces × ratio | [15 × (1/5)] ÷ ([15 × (1/5)] + [30 × (1/15)]) = 3 ÷ 5 | 60% |
| Accommodation | Licensed spaces × maximum group size ratio | [15 × (1/15)] ÷ ([15 × (1/15)] + [30 × (1/30)]) = 1 ÷ 2 | 50% |
Run the same arithmetic on a fuller centre — 15 toddler and 24 preschool spaces on the eligible side, 30 primary/junior school age spaces on the other, same typical hours — and the three shares come out at 87.5% for program staffing and operating, 75% for the supervisor, and 66.7% for accommodation. The figures move together but never land in the same place, and a single blended percentage applied across the whole trial balance will be wrong on at least two of the three.
The method is an example, not a mandate. The guideline allows an alternate reasonable method, and in Peel the school-age guideline says so expressly for school-age reporting: use the provincial methodology or establish an alternate reasonable method, applied consistently year over year and supported by clear documentation that explains the rationale and the calculation. The example above also assumes every space operates the same number of service days; where they do not, the weighting has to adjust for that too.
Staff
Same wage floors, different envelope, claimed once.
This is the part that surprises operators, and it is worth stating plainly: the 2026 workforce requirements for staff serving six-to-twelves in Peel are the same numbers as for CWELCC staff. The Wage Enhancement Grant ceiling is CA$33.81 an hour. Workforce Compensation Funding is an increase of up to CA$4 an hour for eligible RECE staff below ceilings of CA$28 for program staff and CA$31 for supervisors. The RECE wage floors are CA$25.86 for program staff and CA$26.86 for supervisors, measured on the stacked total of base wage, General Operating Funding, WEG and the WCF increase. Ontario's minimum wage sits underneath all of it at CA$17.60.
What differs is where the money comes from. In the provincial guidelines, WEG, the Home Child Care Enhancement Grant and Workforce Compensation for CWELCC-enrolled licensees in respect of CWELCC-eligible children are funded through cost-based funding. For non-CWELCC-eligible children — the six-to-twelves — those same grants sit in the Ministry's Local Priorities envelopes, which are enveloped and cannot be transferred, with Local Priorities Flex Funding available to cover shortfalls. One child care centre, two funding streams, and no mechanism for borrowing between them.
Both the provincial and the Peel guidelines then impose the rule that keeps the two apart: you can only claim a staffing expense once. Staff supporting children under six are claimed under CWELCC. Staff supporting children six to twelve are claimed under school-age funding. Floaters and staff who support both are claimed under the programme where they spend most of their time — not split, and not claimed twice.
Where the time log earns its keep
"Most of their time" is a factual question with a documentary answer, and it is the kind of answer a reviewer asks for after the year has closed. A floater schedule kept as it is worked — rather than reconstructed from memory in February — is the difference between a defensible claim and an argument.
One more administrative thread
Service managers must pass at least 1.4% of their WEG and HCCEG administration funding to licensees for the administration cost of the grants for staff serving children aged 6 to 12 — reduced from 10% in 2024, because the 0-to-5 share was folded into cost-based funding. If less than 1.4% reaches those licensees, the province recovers the difference from the service manager.
In Peel
What the School-age (6 to 12) programme actually pays for.
In Peel, school-age funding is a standalone programme with its own guideline, released December 10, 2025 and covering January 1 to December 31, 2026. It reaches centre-based before, after, and before-and-after school programmes and licensed summer day camps for children 6 to 12. It arrives as a single GovGrants announcement — 2026 School-age (6 to 12) Programs – Centres — carrying ten budget categories.
| Budget category | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Wage Enhancement Grant | WEG for eligible program staff and supervisors serving 6 to 12, to the CA$33.81 ceiling |
| Workforce Compensation | The up to CA$4 RECE increase and the RECE wage floors |
| Minimum Wage Offset | Reimbursement for the 2022 and 2023 minimum wage increases on eligible non-RECE positions that existed on or before September 30, 2023. Not available for the October 2024 or October 2025 increases |
| General Operating – SWB | Maintaining the 2024 General Operating Funding hourly wage and benefit enhancements |
| Child Care Fees | Replacing the base fee revenue given up through the BASP fee reduction |
| Enrichment | New or enhanced extracurricular activities during the school year |
| Enhanced Program Support | Program support staff above ratio, to support inclusion |
| Planning time | Paid planning time for eligible staff |
| Professional learning costs | Eligible professional learning for eligible staff |
| Administration | Administering the programme and meeting reporting and reconciliation requirements |
Peel's guideline notes that the Operations funding programme is under review and that the guideline will be updated once that review is complete — so a centre budgeting school-age operations costs for 2027 is budgeting against a number that has not been set.
The fee reduction is 50%, and it is narrower than it sounds
In Peel the requirement is a 50% reduction of licensed before, after and before-and-after school programme base fees for eligible children, and a 50% reduction on Ministry-approved PA days and breaks as set out in your parent handbook. Four details decide whether a centre gets this right:
- Summer break is not eligible. Enrichment funding cannot be used for summer activities either.
- The reduction is upfront. Charge the reduced fee; refunds are not permitted.
- Your own discounts come first. A sibling or early-bird discount is applied before the 50% reduction, not after.
- Subsidy families are included, with a floor of nothing. A family with an approved parent contribution gets 50% off that contribution even where it is under CA$12 a day — Peel's own example takes CA$16 a day to CA$8. A family paying no parent contribution at all is not eligible, because the fee is already covered.
And one trap sits exactly on the boundary this guide is about: Peel does not provide school-age fee funding for kindergarten spaces occupied by children who are six or older and therefore out of CWELCC. Funding flexibility can cover that reduction, if the mandatory school-age requirements are met and the allocation is not exceeded — but it is flexibility, not an allocation, and in a tight year there may be none to spare.
Flexibility, with four limits
Leftover school-age funding may be moved to other eligible school-age categories once the mandatory requirements are met. The limits are specific. No more than 10% may be moved out of Enhanced Program Support without Peel's approval. The administration budget cannot be increased with unspent funding from other categories, though unspent administration funding can go elsewhere. Flexibility cannot be used to enhance a wage grant beyond its policy — the guideline's example is that you cannot turn WEG into a CA$3 an hour increase. And anything flexibility pays for in 2026 is to be treated as a one-time cost that will not be supported in 2027.
The 2026 shortfall window has closed: Peel asked for shortfall requests by email by October 1, 2026, and said added funding would be considered, subject to budget availability, for WEG, WCF, Minimum Wage Offset and child care fees only — not for Enhanced Program Support, enrichment, professional learning, planning time or General Operating Funding. A surplus at year end is recovered under the Service Provider Handbook. Which leaves the next three months as the window for spending a surplus on genuinely eligible costs rather than handing it back.
Ineligible, both ways
The two lists are mirror images, and neither one forgives the other.
| Cost | Under CWELCC cost-based funding in Peel | Under School-age (6 to 12) Funding in Peel |
|---|---|---|
| Delivering care to children 6 to 12 | Ineligible outright | This is what it is for |
| Costs already funded from another public source | Ineligible | Ineligible — and CWELCC cost-based funding is named as an example |
| Major capital | Not in the benchmarks; major repairs only where approved for One-time Emergency Funding | Ineligible |
| Debt principal and interest | Financing costs above Canada Small Business Financing Program rates are ineligible | Ineligible, including capital, mortgage and operating loans |
| Property taxes | Funded through the accommodation benchmark | Ineligible |
| Bonuses, gifts, honoraria | Amounts in lieu of profit for the controlling owner are ineligible | Ineligible for staff, including retirement bonuses |
| College of Early Childhood Educators membership fees | Not an eligible cost | Ineligible |
| Penalties and fines | Ineligible | Ineligible |
| Vehicle costs | Limited; prorated mileage in defined circumstances | Ineligible unless the vehicle transports children between school and the programme |
The second row is the one that does the damage. A cost claimed on both reconciliations is ineligible on at least one of them, and in Peel the school-age guideline makes CWELCC cost-based funding its named example of another public source. That is why the split has to be a method applied to the whole ledger rather than a judgement made line by line: a method can be shown to add to 100%, and a series of judgements usually adds to more.
On external bookkeeping and accounting, both sides allow it where receipts and invoices support what is claimed. In Peel's school-age guideline it falls in the administration category, cannot exceed that category's budget, and non-arm's-length transactions are eligible only at fair market value. Owners and operators on payroll as of January 1, 2026 may claim time spent on school-age administration — either as a percentage of total paid time or as a number of paid hours — which means a time record, not an estimate.
Peel, Halton and Toronto
The 6-to-12 money is packaged differently in each.
| Service manager | How 6-to-12 funding is set out |
|---|---|
| In Peel | A standalone 2026 School-age (6 to 12) Funding guideline for centre-based licensed BASP, with its own GovGrants announcement, ten budget categories, a 50% fee reduction requirement and its own reconciliation. |
| In Halton | No separate school-age funding guideline is published. The Region's CWELCC materials state that operators enrolled in CWELCC, or not enrolled and exclusively serving children aged 6 to 12, are eligible for workforce compensation funding for eligible staff serving the 6-to-12 age groups. |
| In Toronto | The 6-to-12 wage grants run through the 2026 WEG/HCCEG and Workforce Compensation Requirements Guideline, which is separate from the cost-based funding requirements guideline, and covers eligible positions serving children aged 6 to 12 for both non-CWELCC operators and CWELCC operators' school-age staff. |
So the eligibility test and the wage numbers come from the province, but the application route, the budget categories, the fee reduction requirement and the reporting all come from your own service manager. If you operate in more than one of the three, you are running more than one set of rules, and a methodology that satisfies one reviewer is not automatically the one another expects. Where a rule here matters to a decision, get your service manager's position in writing before the year closes rather than after.
Between now and December 31
Five things to settle before the year closes.
Write the methodology down, once, for all three cost types. Not a blended percentage. Program staffing and operating, supervisor, and accommodation each take their own weighting, and in Peel an alternate method has to be applied consistently year over year and supported by documentation explaining the rationale and the calculation. Decide it now and apply it to the whole year, rather than deriving it in March from the answer you want.
Check the floaters against the schedule actually worked. Each one is claimed wholly under the programme where they spent most of their time. If the autumn schedule moved someone across the line, the claim moves with them.
Re-read the fee schedule you posted on August 1. In Peel it had to carry your regular fees, the dollar amount of the reduction, the start and end dates, a statement that reductions are upfront and refunds are not permitted, and a note that the funding comes from Peel Region, applies only to BASP in Peel, and depends on funding being available in future. It also has to be in the parent handbook. A handbook that does not match what you charged is the simplest kind of finding to make.
Look at each envelope separately for surplus and shortfall. A CWELCC underspend and a school-age underspend are two recoveries, not one, and neither can be cured with the other's money. The school-age shortfall window closed on October 1; eligible spending is the remaining lever.
Keep the records for seven years. That is what Peel's school-age guideline requires for school-age funding expenses — longer than the six years the CRA generally expects for books and records, so the longer period governs what you actually keep.
What reconciliation looks like
In Peel, school-age expenditure is reported by budget category in GovGrants, with an Excel template for the detail and key performance indicators alongside it. Separately, a 5% sample of centres receiving cost-based funding goes through a CSAE 3531 direct engagement each year, performed by an independent third-party practitioner. Among the things that engagement confirms is that a reasonable methodology was employed to prorate costs — which is to say, the split described on this page is itself a tested control, not a presentation choice.
What we do with this
For the centres we keep books for in Peel, Halton and Toronto, the allocation method lives in the same working file as the ledger, with the weightings and the space counts behind it, so that both reconciliations come out of one set of numbers. It makes the year-end shorter and the questions easier to answer.
Quick answers
What operators ask us.
Are kindergarten children in our before and after school program covered by CWELCC?
Yes, while they are still eligible children. CWELCC eligibility is an age test under O. Reg. 137/15, s. 1 (1), not a programme test, so a kindergarten-age child in a before and after school program gets the reduced base fee. For a centre that enrolled in CWELCC after December 31, 2024, s. 77.2(2) of O. Reg. 137/15 caps that fee at the amount in its Table for your own service area: in Peel CA$13.35 a day for kindergarten before and after care and CA$12.27 for school-age, in Halton CA$13.26 and CA$12.22, and in Toronto CA$15.26 and CA$12.55.
A child in our program turns six in March. When do market fees start?
It depends on the licensed group the child is in. A child in a licensed infant, toddler, preschool or kindergarten group, or a licensed family age group, or home child care, who turns six between January 1 and June 30 stays eligible to June 30. A child in a licensed primary/junior school age group is eligible only to the last day of the month in which they turn six — so the end of March. In Peel the 2026 guideline publishes this as two separate tables.
How do we split the rent between CWELCC and the school-age program?
Accommodation costs are weighted on licensed spaces using the maximum group size ratios in Schedule 1 to O. Reg. 137/15, counting only eligible age groups in the numerator. The provincial example of 15 toddler spaces (maximum group 15) and 30 primary/junior school age spaces (maximum group 30) gives an eligible share of 50%. Note that the share for rent is not the share for program staffing or for the supervisor — those use different weightings and produce different percentages for the same centre.
Can we use one percentage for everything?
The provincial methodology does not, and a single blended percentage will overstate or understate at least two of the three cost types. The guideline allows an alternate reasonable method, and in Peel it must be applied consistently year over year and supported by clear documentation explaining the rationale and the calculation details. A reasonable method you can show is more defensible than a tidy one you cannot.
Our supervisor covers both sides of the centre. Can we split her salary across both claims?
Staffing expenses can only be claimed once. Staff supporting children under six are claimed under CWELCC, staff supporting children six to twelve under school-age funding, and floaters or staff who support both are claimed under the programme where they spend most of their time. The supervisor benchmark inside cost-based funding separately reflects an eligible child ratio, so the allocation already accounts for a shared supervisor without a second claim.
Are the wage floors different for staff in the school-age program?
In Peel, no. For 2026 the RECE wage floors are CA$25.86 an hour for program staff and CA$26.86 for supervisors on both sides, the WEG wage ceiling is CA$33.81, and Workforce Compensation provides up to CA$4 an hour below ceilings of CA$28 and CA$31. The requirements are the same; the funding envelope the money comes out of is not.
Is summer camp covered by the school-age fee reduction?
Not in Peel. The guideline covers licensed summer day camps for children 6 to 12 within the programme generally, but the fee reduction requirement expressly excludes summer break, and enrichment funding cannot be used for activities during summer break either. Before, after, before-and-after, Ministry-approved PA days and school breaks as set out in your parent handbook are the covered occasions.
We underspent our school-age allocation. Can we move it to CWELCC costs?
No. The two envelopes are separate, and costs funded by another public source are ineligible on both sides — in Peel's school-age guideline, CWELCC cost-based funding is the named example. Unspent school-age funding may be moved between eligible school-age categories within the limits in the guideline, and anything still unspent at year end is recovered under the Service Provider Handbook.
Sources: O. Reg. 137/15 under the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014 — s. 1 (1) definition of "eligible child" and Schedule 1; Ontario Ministry of Education, Chapter 2 Division 2: CWELCC Cost-Based Funding Guideline (July 2026) — the reasonable methodology for splitting eligible and ineligible costs, ineligible costs for ineligible children, and the CSAE 3531 direct engagement; Ontario Ministry of Education, Chapter 1: Funding Guideline (July 2026) — Local Priorities enveloping for WEG/HCCEG and Workforce Compensation in respect of non-CWELCC-eligible children, and the 1.4% administration minimum; Region of Peel, 2026 Guideline School-age (6 to 12) Funding, centre-based licensed BASP (version 1, December 10, 2025) — sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10; Region of Peel, 2026 CWELCC funding guideline, centre-based — sections 4.6, 5, 7.3 and 10.2; Halton Region, CWELCC information for child care professionals; Toronto Children's Services, 2026 WEG/HCCEG and Workforce Compensation Requirements Guideline (March 2026). Rules, categories and dates differ by service manager, and Peel's Operations funding programme for school-age is under review. General information, not advice for your situation.
Running both programmes out of one set of books?
Call 647-870-8498 or email info@ghayurtax.com. We keep the books for licensed centres and home child care agencies in Peel, Halton and Toronto, and we set the allocation method up once so that the CWELCC and school-age reconciliations come out of the same numbers.