TCC-00-07, Processing Year 2001 Certification Process

Giving Hope and Support to America's Children

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Administration for Children & Families
Office of Child Support Enforcement

TCC-00-07 AUG 21, 2000

TO: ALL FEDERAL OFFSET CONTACTS

RE: Processing Year 2001 Certification Process

In preparation for the start of the PY2001 Submittal Process, please respond in writing to the questions listed below. These questions have been categorized based on the specific information needed from both annual and continuous submitting States. Please fax your response to: (202) 401-5553, Attn: Scott Hale, or email to scollections@acf.hhs.gov no later than August 25, 2000.

For your convenience, the finalized version of the PY2001 Certification Process and Schedule is enclosed. Please review this process carefully, as modifications have been made since it's last distribution. The document will serve as final written notice of the PY2001 Certification Process.

1). Is your State submitting an annual certification file?

2). If OCSE issues Pre-Offset notices for your State, are you requesting that Pre-Offset notices be sent for all cases or for new cases only?

The remaining questions apply only to those States that are submitting an annual certification file:

3). For those States that generate their own Pre-Offset notices, what date will be issued on the Pre-Offset notices?

4). What will be the approximate number of cases in your submittal file?

5). Based on the schedule provided below, what date will your submittal file be sent to OCSE?

If any changes to the above need to be made following your reply, please notify the Special Collections Unit immediately via the fax number or email address listed above. For those States sending an annual certification file, please contact the Special Collections Unit at (202) 401-9389 before transmitting.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact the Special Collections Unit at
(202) 401-9389 or scollections@acf.hhs.gov.

Sincerely,

Donna J. Bonar
Associate Commissioner
For Office of Automation and Program Operations
Office of Child Support Enforcement

cc: State IV-D Directors

FEDERAL OFFSET, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS UNIT

PY2001 CERTIFICATION PROCESS (FINAL)

It is recommended that all States, whether submitting annually or continuously, update their Local Code files prior to the start of the PY2001 Certification Process. This will help to reduce the possibility of receiving rejects as a result of Local Code errors.

ANNUAL SUBMISSION

Entire certified caseload is submitted by the State. The Transaction Type must be 145A’ for all cases.

Cases will be run through a front-end process to determine whether the case is an add (i.e., new or re-certified case) or a modification to an active case.

If the case is an add, the transaction type will remain as 145A’.

If it’s determined that the case is being modified, the front-end process will create the appropriate transaction(s): Modify amount owed (M), Change submitting State Local Code (L), or Replace existing offset exclusion indicator(s) (R). If there are multiple changes to an active case (e.g., arrearage amount and exclusion indicators), multiple transactions will be created for the same case (e.g., M and R).

OCSE will compare the States’ annual submittal file to cases currently certified at OCSE. If a case is active at OCSE and is not on the submittal file, a Delete (D) transaction will be generated.

The OCSE generated transactions will be submitted along with the add transactions into the weekly update process, where processing will continue as normal.

Any errors will be returned on the Rejected Case Submission and Update File with the record that generated the error. For example, the front-end process determines that a case from the Case Submission and Update File is modifying the arrearage amount for an existing case, and it generates an 145M’ transaction for the case. The normal weekly update process then detects an error for the 145M’ transaction. The case will be returned on the Rejected Case Submission and Update File as an 145M’ transaction with the related error code, as opposed to being returned as the originally submitted 145A’ transaction.

Please note that FIDM-Only cases will continue to be processed under the same restrictions as currently apply in the normal weekly update process. Therefore, a case can not be submitted in the annual submission file with modifications to the exclusion indicators to change a non-FIDM-Only case to FIDM-Only, or to change a FIDM-Only case to non-FIDM-Only. Either of these situations will cause the case to be rejected by the weekly update process with an error code of 39. Such cases should be submitted for Annual Certification in their current FIDM-Only or non-FIDM-Only state, and be resubmitted after the Certification Process is complete to change their FIDM-Only status.

Changes (Updates & Deletes) to active cases will occur at the time the annual submittal file is processed. OCSE will not wait until 1/1/2001 to implement changes.

Additional updates (Adds, Modifies, etc.) can not be sent by the State until the reject file from the annual submittal is received and processed by the State (approximately 2 weeks).

States must notify OCSE in writing (via fax or email) when they have completed processing the reject file from the annual submittal. OCSE will not begin reprocessing weekly update files until this notification has been received.

CONTINUOUS SUBMISSION

Updates (Adds, Modifies, etc.) will be accepted and processed through 12/11/2000 (Monday).

FREEZE PERIOD

A freeze period for all submissions, Annual or Continuous, will be in effect from 12/12/2000 through 1/2/2001 to allow for reconciliation.

OCSE GENERATED PRE-OFFSET NOTICES

For Annual & Continuous submitters, States can choose to have PONs sent for all cases, or just for new cases.

For Annual submitters, PONs will be created when the submission file is processed.

For Continuous submitters, PONs will be created in October if the State requests that notices be sent for all cases.

A PON will be sent for any case that has not had a notice sent in the last 45 days.

SCHEDULE

9/1/00 - 12/11/00	PY2001 Certification Period
	Updates accepted and processed for all continuous submitters. Updates accepted and processed for annual submitters who have not yetsubmitted their annual file, or have submitted their annual file and received back and processed rejects from their annuaal submission.
9/1/00 - 9/13/00	Annual submission period for 90 day hold period States.
9/25/00 - 10/6/00	Annual submission period for 45 or 60 day hold period States.
11/1/00 - 11/15/00	Annual submission period for 30 day hold period States.
12/12/00 - 1/2/01	Freeze period for all States (Annual and Continuous submitters).
1/3/01	Updates accepted from all States.
1/26/01	IRS processing electronic refunds.
2/2/01	IRS processing paper refunds.

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