Views of Responding Officials: The Department agrees with the finding and will implement corrective action, however, notes the following: The referrals to the Child Support Enforcement Agency (“CSEA”) are done through an interface between the HAWI eligibility and CSEA’s KEIKI systems. When a recipient is determined noncompliant by CSEA, the information is sent via the interface from KEIKI to HAWI in the form of a system-generated alert. This process worked well when application processing and maintenance of recipient cases were done in a case management method (e.g., each eligibility worker assigned to process applications and/or maintain a caseload of active cases). Using this method, eligibility workers managed their caseloads and checked for incoming alerts for cases assigned to them; these alerts included the CSEA noncompliant alerts coming from the KEIKI system. Workers were able to take appropriate and timely action in response to the alerts received. However, necessary changes were made to how applications and active cases are managed. The division stopped the case management method and converted to “task-oriented” processing statewide. Workers are no longer assigned to caseloads but are assigned to “tasks” such as processing applications, incoming documents/verifications, reported changes, six month review and annual recertifications, etc. A case is not reviewed and worked in HAWI until a worker is prompted to do so, e.g., six-month review, annual recertification or a change was reported by the household. It is until such action occurs when an eligibility worker, who picks up the task, will check for alerts for the case. Aside from that, recipient cases will not be reviewed during their certification period. So how the “alerts” were developed in HAWI no longer works for the way we currently process applications and maintain recipient cases. We are unable to modify the HAWI system because we are currently developing a new eligibility system that will replace HAWI. The new eligibility system is scheduled to go into production in late 2024.
Corrective Action Taken or Planned: As an interim solution until the new eligibility system rolls out into production, a shared folder is being created where CSEA will place the monthly reports of non cooperating TANF cases so designated TANF staff members, who are granted access to the shared folder, will be able to retrieve the reports.
TANFPO will review the identified TANF cases. Individual lists will be forwarded to the Section Administrators to instruct the affected Processing Centers to take appropriate action (i.e., TANF case closure due to noncompliance with CSEA).
Expected Completion Date: July 1, 2024
Responding Officials: Catherine Scardino, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program Administrator