Second Error Rate Pilot Report
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Appendix C. New Jersey
A. Organizational Structure
The New Jersey Department of Human Services (DHS), Division of Family Development (DFD), is the State agency responsible for the overall administration of the Child Care Development Fund. DFD works in collaboration with the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) and the DHS Office of Licensing in the administration and operation of the program. In addition, DFD supervises supportive services including (child care) for Work First New Jersey (WFNJ), New Jersey’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and post–TANF participants under New Jersey’s Transitional Child Care (TCC) program.
DFD currently contracts with 16 Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies, 14 of which are non-profit community based agencies, and two units of local government to administer and coordinate the CCDF subsidy programs and other child care initiatives in each of New Jersey’s 21 counties. DFD also contracts directly with approximately 480 contracted child care provider agencies. These agencies provide over 36,000 subsidized child care slots on a statewide basis annually.
Program staff in DFD periodically review and set the standards for operation of all aspects of child care services and related programs, including all contracted child care agencies and providers. The CCR&R agencies and approximately 180 center based contract child care providers (CBCs) determine the eligibility of families and the availability of child care service funds for all DHS administered child care service programs.
Staffs of the 21 New Jersey County Welfare Agencies (CWAs) and Boards of Social Services (BSSs) are responsible for determining eligibility for child care services for TANF families. Referrals of eligible participants with the appropriate income and work activities are made to one of the CCR&R agencies to obtain the child care services.
B. Overview of the Child Care Eligibility Process
To be eligible for child care assistance, families must have an income less than 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for new cases, and up to 250 percent of the FPL for on-going cases, re-determined annually, be employed or in an approved education or training activity, and cooperate with child support enforcement when applicable.
A re-determination of the subsidy amount occurs when there is a change in the family size, provider type, income, hours of employment/training/education, and hours of care needed or the number of children receiving services. If such a re-determination is warranted, the CCR&R agency must notify the family that all changes become effective with the beginning of the next full month of service. In these instances a new Parent/Applicant Provider Agreement (PAPA) must be completed and signed.
Through case monitoring or based on reported changes, the CCR&R agency must assess changes in family circumstances, employment, or training and determine whether a reassessment of the program eligibility, subsidy amount, and/or co-pay amount is necessary. The parent is required to provide the required verification of the change in circumstance.
When the family reports a change, the contracted agency inputs the new information into the Child Care Resources Eligibility System (CARES) automated system. The CCR&R agency uses this information and all required supporting documentation to verify client eligibility. All CCR&R agency actions are also documented and maintained in the family case record.
When the CCR&R agency is notified of a change in family circumstance involving a layoff, termination from employment, or a break in participation in an education or training program, the family may continue to receive services for 30 days.
C. Improper Payment Process
New Jersey defines a client overpayment as funds that have been erroneously paid on behalf of a family to a child care provider, whenever the family or child was ineligible to receive the issued benefit amount. Examples include:
- Non-reporting or underreporting of income;
- Receiving payments in more than one jurisdiction;
- Incorrect reporting of household size;
- Incorrect information on compliance with program; and
- Other program requirements, such as participating in required activity.
Provider overpayments are funds that have been erroneously paid but the eligibility of the family or child(ren) is not affected. These overpayments may result from intentional or unintentional errors in the completion of the voucher made by the provider(s) or the CCR&R agency. Examples include:
- Overstating level of service (e.g., child attendance); and
- Claims for services not rendered (e.g., child enrollment).
Whenever an overpayment occurs, the CCR&R agency recovers the entire amount of the overpayment to the best of its ability and whenever cost effective. The overpayment amount is a portion of the total subsidy paid to the child care provider. After determining the overpayment, the CCR&R agency establishes a repayment agreement with the applicant or the provider following issuance of a written notice advising them of the overpayment. Repayment may occur through either a lump sum payment or monthly payments. If the family or provider indicates that repayment within the current eligibility period will create a hardship, the CCR&R agency is authorized to negotiate a longer repayment period. DFD must approve all repayment agreements that exceed one year.
1. Strategies to prevent or identify improper payments
New Jersey uses several strategies to prevent or identify improper payments, including:
- Twice a year monitoring of the CCR&R agencies and CBCs to review randomly selected case records for completeness and accuracy;
- Establishing a Quality Assurance in Child Care committee that includes systems and program staff to develop policies and procedures to decrease the potential for improper payments;
- Establishing a new Program Integrity Unit to oversee work on using technology such as, data matching and shared data warehouse technology to identify improper payments;
- Strengthening the voucher system through upgraded security measures through enhancement of internal controls and by CCR&R supervisory control of the voucher approval process;
- Data matching on a quarterly basis of client information from the CARES and CTRX systems with the Income Eligibility Verification System (IEVS);
- Data matching on a quarterly basis of client information from the CARES and CTRX systems with the OMEGA (TANF) system; and
- Using data sources to better ensure accurate payments for WFNJ/TANF and TCC child care services, such as:
- Income Eligibility Verification System (IEVS);
- Public Assistance Reporting Information System (PARIS);
- Social Security Administration (SSA) form W-2 (wage statements);
- SSA Social Security number verification;
- SSA Supplemental Security Income (SSI) data; and
- SSI death information.
After receipt of technical assistance during the site visit, New Jersey substantially customized the Record Review Worksheet template to include coding and specific boilerplate language to guide the reviewer’s written case narrative. After consulting with the contractor during the site visit, New Jersey determined that the statewide sample could not include the cases utilizing contracted child care slots. These child care cases did not meet pilot requirements for the unit of analysis of an authorized payment on a per child basis utilizing the voucher system. New Jersey submitted a second universe to the contractor to select a new statewide sample that included only cases using a child care voucher and appearing in the Child Care Automated Resources Eligibility System (CARES). New Jersey trained its Review Team centrally and then reviewers conducted the reviews in their assigned regions at the local Child Care Resource and Referrals (CCR&R) agencies. The Review Team consisted of three supervisors and 13 Child Care Specialists.
E. Automation
A major challenge for New Jersey is that information on child care clients resides in three different databases. Work First New Jersey (WFNJ/TANF) case information resides on the OMEGA (TANF) system, New Jersey Care for Kids (NJCK) CCR&R case information resides in CARES, the child care automated voucher payments system, and the information on clients receiving Center Based Contract (CBC) resides on the Contracts System (CTRX) and Contracts Accounting Tracking System (CATS). None of these systems “talk” to one another, requiring the periodic generation of matching reports to verify client household and income information with third party or outside income databases.
CARES is a system custom designed for the State. The system is a single Oracle platform using a UNIX operating system. The application includes client application intake, eligibility determination, agreement establishment, subsidy and co-pay calculation, voucher generation, attendance input, check writing process, accounting procedures, letters, notices, forms, and reports.
F. Next Steps
For correction and reduction of future improper payments, New Jersey will:
- Allocate time during meetings with the Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) Directors meeting to provide feedback and direction on implementing corrective measures.
- Institute the Error Rate Pilot monitoring tool for use of all future file reviews, in addition to increasing the number of files for review.
- Provide technical assistance to CCR&R agency staff in those areas where improper payments were detected in file reviews.
- Improve lines of communication between Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), the lead State child protective service agency and the Division of Family Development, the lead State child care agency, and the CCR&R agencies at State and local levels.
- Look into implementing changes in the CARES system to better detect data entry errors or create error messages when data entry errors occur.
- Implement a process to conduct electronic matching of the automated child care client database with records on other wage, SSI, and child support information systems to identify and reduce the number of improper payments.
- Hire quality assurance staff or allocate the FTE needed to enable the Division to conduct file reviews, using a methodology that guarantees a statistically valid sample size of randomly selected cases.
- Link reduced improper payments to penalties in Child Care Resource and Referral contracts.
New Jersey Site Visit Participants
Beverly Wellons, Assistant Director for Child Care Operations and State Child Care Administrator, DFD
George Kobil, Program & Policy Analyst, Child Care Operations, DFD
Elaine Mullen, Supervisor, Child Care Operations, DFD
Maribel Steath, Supervisor, Child Care Operations, DFD
Shonda Laurel, Supervisor, Child Care Operations, DFD
Cammelia Bacon-Cassagnol, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Sharrelle Blue, Child Care Specialist, DFD
LaTasha Brown, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Shaaron Crossland, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Debra Freeman, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Betty Griffin, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Sharon McBride, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Traci McMillan, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Andrea Masella, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Lisa Ojibway, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Reyland Malvern, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Andrea Petranto, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Randy Singer, Child Care Specialist, DFD
Exhibit C-1. New Jersey Record Review Worksheet
A. IDENTIFYING INFORMATION |
B. PERSONS IN THE FAMILY |
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1. CCR&R: |
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DOB |
AGE |
RELATIONSHIP SIGNIFICANCE |
SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER |
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| 4. FAMILY ID NUMBER: |
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| 5. REVIEW DATE |
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| 6. DATE OF APPLICATION |
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| 7. SPECIALIST |
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| 8. DATE ASSIGNED: |
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| 9. DATE OF FILE REVIEW: |
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| 10. DATE COMPLETED: |
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| 11. SUPERVISOR SIGNATURE: |
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12. DATE APPROVED: |
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CO-PAYMENT AMOUNT: $_________________ (CIRCLE ONE) AMOUNT CORRECT: OVERPAMENT: CASE INELIGIBLE: AMOUNT IN ERROR: $_________________ |
| Child ID | STATE: | COUNTY: | DATE: |
| New Jersey |
SECTION I Child Care Eligibility Application
| APPLICATION FORM | ANALYSIS OF CASE RECORD | FINDINGS | RESULTS | |
| Is application present? Is it dated, signed and completed? If the date of application is 12 months or older, has the case been re-determined timely? Date of re-determination application. Is the re-determination signed and completed? |
0 | NO ERROR | ||
| 1 | CLIENT ERROR | |||
| 2 | AGENCY ERROR | |||
SECTION II GENERAL PROGRAM REQUIRMENTS FOR CASE RECORDS
| QUALIFYING HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD | ANALYSIS OF CASE RECORD | FINDINGS | RESULTS | |
| Establish relationship. |
0 | NO ERROR | ||
| 1 | CLIENT ERROR | |||
| 2 | AGENCY ERROR | |||
| FAMILY SIZE | ANALYSIS OF CASE RECORD | FINDINGS | RESULTS | |
| Determine family size. Does family size information agree? |
0 | NO ERROR | ||
| 1 | CLIENT ERROR | |||
| 2 | AGENCY ERROR | |||
| FAMILY INCOME | ANALYSIS OF CASE RECORD | FINDINGS | RESULTS | |
| Verify income. Include Co-payment Calculations. |
0 | NO ERROR | ||
| 1 | CLIENT ERROR | |||
| 2 | AGENCY ERROR | |||
| INCOME ELIGIBLITY |
ANALYSIS OF CASE RECORD | FINDINGS | RESULTS | |
| Document income eligibility criteria. |
0 | NO ERROR | ||
| 1 | CLIENT ERROR | |||
| 2 | AGENCY ERROR | |||
| ELIGIBLE PARENT/APPLICANTS | ANALYSIS OF CASE RECORD | FINDINGS | RESULTS | |
| Document hours of work and/or education/training. |
0 | NO ERROR | ||
| 1 | CLIENT ERROR | |||
| 2 | AGENCY ERROR | |||
SECTION III PRIORITY PLACEMENT QUESTIONS AND AGENCY OFFICAL USE
| PRIORITY PLACEMENT | ANALYSIS OF CASE RECORD | FINDINGS | RESULTS | |
| Is Section “D” of the application completed properly? |
0 | NO ERROR | ||
| 1 | CLIENT ERROR | |||
| 2 | AGENCY ERROR | |||
SECTION IV CHILD RECORD(S)
| ELIGIBLE CHILD(REN) | ANALYSIS OF CASE RECORD | FINDINGS | RESULTS | |
| Document child(ren)’s age with services. |
0 | NO ERROR | ||
| 1 | CLIENT ERROR | |||
| 2 | AGENCY ERROR | |||
New Jersey Child Care Error Rate Pilot
APPENDIX C-1
DATA ENTRY FORM
| VARIABLE | VALUE |
| State | New Jersey |
| County | |
| Child ID [ID] | |
| Study Period Month (October 2005) [PERIOD] | |
| Date of data collection [DATE] | |
| One or more eligibility errors during pilot period [ERROR] 0 =no errors, 1 = one or more errors |
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| Cause of improper payment [CAUSE] 0 =no errors, 1 = client, 2 = agency |
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| Total amount of improper payments during review month [TIMP] | |
| Total amount of payments during review month [AMPAY] |
Note: The terms in brackets represent the variables names in the THE CONTRACTOR-maintained database.
COMPUTING Potential Error RatesThis form contains nine fields:
- State;
- County of service;
- Child ID;
- Study period month (October 2005);
- Date of data collection;
- One or more administrative errors during the pilot period;
- Cause of improper payment;
- Total amount of improper payments during review month; and
- Total amount of payments during review month.
Copies of all Data Entry Forms and each Record Review Worksheet will be sent to the contractor. Using these data, the contractor will compute three types of error rates—case error rate, payment error rate, and average dollars spent in error per ineligible child.
June, 2007