(Revised 01/01/21 ML 3602)
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State responsibilities include supervision of certification, issuance and outreach activities, maintenance of Quality Control, quality assurance, a complaint procedures system, statewide fiscal accountability, settlement of claims resulting from fraud and non-fraud claims, and developing, conducting and evaluating statewide training.
Disaster SNAP
The State Emergency SNAP Plan of Operation must be followed when there is a presidentially declared disaster. The State Office will issue instructions.
Training
The State Office is responsible to institute a continuing training program for workers, supervisors, fair hearing officials, and performance reporting system reviewers.
The human service zone is responsible to ensure staff attend training sessions.
North Dakota's open-meeting law and Federal regulations permit attendance of non-employees at training sessions. The role of public participants must be limited to observation only.
Quality Assurance Coordinator
The State Office is required by federal regulations to establish a continuing performance reporting system to monitor program administration and program operations. The components of the system must provide for:
- Data collection through Quality Control reviews and Quality Assurance Management Evaluations
- Analysis of data collected by Quality Control and the Quality Assurance Management Evaluations and all other management information sources.
- Corrective action planning.
- Corrective action implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
- Reporting to FNS on program performance.
Quality Assurance Management Evaluation
SNAP regulations mandate that the State Office conduct a Quality Assurance Management Evaluation (ME) of all human service zones. The reviews determine if the zones are administering and operating SNAP in accordance with program requirements contained in the State SNAP Policy Manual and the State Electronic Benefit Manual. The review must include an examination of random selected casefiles, personnel, training, certification procedures, client services (outreach), reporting/record keeping, security/control, issuance procedures and a physical inventory and reconciliation of EBT cards.
The results of this review assist human service zones in improving and strengthening the administration and operation of SNAP. The Quality Assurance Management Evaluation must provide data on how the program is being administered at the local level and identify those areas that are deficient. The zone should use the results of the Quality Assurance Management Evaluation as a basis for corrective action.
Corrective Action Planning
The objectives of corrective action planning are to develop appropriate measures to correct SNAP deficiencies based upon the results of data analysis performed by the Quality Assurance Coordinator.
The State is responsible for the development of two types of corrective action:
- Remedial involves rectifying past errors in individual cases.
- Preventative involves correcting patterns of deficiencies.
Corrective action plans are monitored by human service zone and state personnel to determine if they are completed in a timely manner.
FNS requires identification of counties that are not administering SNAP regulations correctly and require the State Office to initiate corrective action.
Quality Control
A Quality Control system has been established to comply with federal regulations. This system documents the number of and reasons for errors in eligibility and issuance of participating households.
Human service zones are required to correct case errors cited by Quality Control.
A review is a statistically random sample of active and negative cases to determine if households are receiving correct SNAP benefits and if cases are denied or closed correctly.
Cases reviewed by Quality Control are randomly selected. Matching random digits against the last four digits of the primary individual’s (PI) social security number generates a statewide sample list.
Death and Prisoner Match
The eligibility system conducts matching on a daily basis with the Social Security Administration to identify individuals who are deceased or in prison.
The human service zone worker will receive a task if there is a match that requires action from the zone worker.
If the information from the match is unclear the zone worker must send the Request for Information Notice to the household. The household must be allowed 10 days from the mailing date of notice to respond and to clarify its circumstances.
The notice must include the name of the individual identified in the match, why the match was unclear, and the required verifications.
If the household does not respond to the notice or fails to provide sufficient information to clarify its circumstances, the zone worker must remove the individual identified in the match from the household, advance notice is required.
If the household responds to the notice, simplified reporting rules apply and the results must be included in the case narrative.
