Recommendation: The Office of Early Childhood should strengthen internal controls over its program eligibility verification process to ensure compliance with all federal and state regulations. Corrective Action Plan as Reported by the Office of Early Childhood: To strengthen internal controls over t...
Recommendation: The Office of Early Childhood should strengthen internal controls over its program eligibility verification process to ensure compliance with all federal and state regulations. Corrective Action Plan as Reported by the Office of Early Childhood: To strengthen internal controls over the Care 4 Kids program eligibility verification process, identify error trends, and to ensure compliance with all federal and state regulations, the contractor has its own internal quality assurance (QA) process; however, the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) has added real time case reviews and an ongoing second layer monthly review to this process. The following corrective action measures have been approved and implemented by the OEC to better identify, prevent, and remedy these errors: 1. The QA Team uses a randomizer to select 10 cases completed by the Eligibility Service Specialists in the last 30 days. These cases consist of applications, redeterminations and supporting documents. The data elements reviewed focus on income and family fee calculation to identify error trends. The error trends are tracked and a quarterly report submitted to the OEC. The quarterly reports will identify the reasons for the errors, which will inform tools that can be made readily available to mitigate the errors, and provide more frequent staff training. 2. The QA Team reviews 13 sample cases from Report 823 (ACF Improper Payment Report), the similar process of the Federal Improper Payment review. Anticipated Completion Date: September 30, 2026 Office of Early Childhood Contact Person: Jill Marini, Interim CCDF Administrator jill.marini@ct.gov