(a) The department shall promulgate guidelines for reviewing and determining county submitted needs-based budgets. The guidelines for the 1992-1993 fiscal year shall be published as a bulletin. Guidelines for approving 1993-1994 fiscal year needs-based budgets shall be adopted by regulation no later than July 1, 1992, but shall not be adopted as emergency regulations pursuant to section 6(b) of the act of June 25, 1982 (P.L. 633, No. 181),¹ known as the “Regulatory Review Act.”

(b) The department determination shall consider whether the county's budget is reasonable in relation to past costs, projected cost increases, number of children in the county and the number of children served, service level trends and projections of other sources of revenue.

(c) To the extent that county staffing patterns are less than that required to meet department staffing regulations, the department determinations shall permit a requesting county to hire sufficient staff to meet the minimum staffing regulations. A determination may disallow expenditures for additional staff if the functions for which the staff is to be hired already meets the minimum required by department regulations.

(d) No determination by the department may be based on payment standards that have not been adopted as of the time of the review in accordance with the “Regulatory Review Act.”