Finding Text
2022-003 Waiver of asset ceilings Legal Services Corporation ALN#09.233100 Criteria: Per LSC Reg.# 1611.3.d Financial eligibility policies, (1) As part of its financial eligibility policies, every recipient shall establish reasonable asset ceilings for individuals and households. In establishing asset ceilings, the recipient may exclude consideration of a household?s principal residence, vehicles used for transportation, assets used in producing income, and other assets which are exempt from attachment under State or Federal law. (2) The recipient?s policies may provide authority for waiver of its asset ceilings for specific applicants under unusual circumstances and when approved by the recipient?s Executive Director, Project Director, or his/her designee. When the asset ceiling is waived, the recipient shall record the reasons for such waiver and shall keep such records as are necessary to inform the Corporation of the reasons for such waiver. Per Legal Services NYC policy, asset ceiling is $25,000. Condition: A couple of instances were noted during LSC case file testing, where waiver approvals of asset ceilings were not obtained. These cases were open prior to 2022 that remained open or closed in 2022. Cause: For one instance, the case information was correctly entered in the case management system. However, the advocate did not complete or click ?continue? in the system. As a result, the system did not capture the financial information that would indicate that the case is not LSC eligible. For another instance noted, the intake paralegal did not obtain an approval for the asset override. Effect: Incorrect or incomplete financial eligibility documentation may result in improperly including or excluding clients from receiving services under the LSC program. Context: Out of sixty (60) LSC cases selected for testing, a waiver approval of asset ceilings for two (2) cases was not obtained. Questioned costs: There are no questioned costs noted. Recommendation: We recommend that Legal Services NYC continue to provide relevant trainings to the employees who handle client intake regarding maintenance of asset ceiling waiver approvals.