Department of Health and Human Services
Departmental Appeals Board
QUALITY CONTROL REVIEW PANEL
SUBJECT: Alabama Department of
Human Resources
Docket No. A-93-207
Decision No. QC57
DATE: October 22, 1993
DECISION
The Alabama Department of Human Resources (State)
appealed the June 30,
1993 quality control (QC)
determination of the Regional Administrator of the
Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in State
QC review number
307094. The federal QC review found
that the assistance unit (AU) was
ineligible for Aid to
Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in the review
month of June 1992 on the basis that a minor mother of a
dependent child
who lives with her own parent is deemed
to have access to that parent's
income. The State argued
that the federal requirement to deem such
income
available to the AU was waived as part of an approved
State
demonstration project known as "Avenues to Self-
Sufficiency Through
Employment and Training Services"
(ASSETS).
For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that this AU
is ineligible
for AFDC even under the provisions of the
ASSETS waiver program and,
accordingly, we uphold ACF's
determination.
Factual Background and Legal Authority
The AU in this case consisted of a 17-year old mother and
her dependent
child who resided in the same household
with the mother's parent
(grandmother). The grandmother
was employed full-time. The needs
and income of the
grandmother were included in the calculation of the
household for Food Stamps purposes, but were not included
in the
calculation of the AFDC payment.
The county in which the AU resided was included in the
ASSETS program,
which was approved by the Secretary of
the Department of Health and Human
Services under Section
1115 of the Social Security Act which allows waivers
of
various program requirements to permit states to
experiment with
demonstration projects. The parties
agreed that QC review of cases
covered by a demonstration
project waiver, like the present one, is governed
by the
eligibility and payment rules of the demonstration
project.
See ACF Brief (Br.) at 2.
Federal regulations at 45 C.F.R. � 233.20(a)(3)(xviii)
provide that when
the parent of a dependent child is
herself a minor, the state "shall count
as income to the
assistance unit the income . . . of such minor's own
parent(s) or legal guardian(s) living in the same
household as the minor
and dependent child." Thus, the
state is to "deem" the grandparent's
income to be
available to the AU so long as the minor parent and her
child are living in the same household with the
grandparent.
The State contended that the ASSETS program included a
waiver of this
deeming requirement. The ASSETS program
combined Food Stamps and AFDC
into a consolidated cash
assistance program and redefined the AU for
purposes of
handling the two programs consistently. The State's
waiver request specified as follows:
The family unit is based on the current Food Stamp
household
concept; it is defined as parent and
spouse, all minor children, including
children of
the minor parent unless the minor parent is a
separate Food
Stamp household. . . . This policy
treats families living together as one
economic
unit, similar to the way the family is treated under
Food Stamp
rules.
ACF Exhibit (Ex.) 2, at �E(1)(h)(6) (State waiver
request)(emphasis
added).
The State manual for the ASSETS program similarly
provides that "minor
parents and their
children . . . will be treated as separate units [for
AFDC] if separate for [Food Stamps] purposes." ACF Ex.
3, at �
4-2-3 (Alabama Comprehensive Family Assistance
Manual (CFAM), Revision No.
12, May 1, 1991). The
criteria for treating the minor parent and
children as a
separate unit for Food Stamps purposes are, in relevant
part, as follows:
Parents and children living together may be a
separate household
IF
* * *
2. The child has a child(ren) under 18 and
parental control is not exercised over the
child or minor child by
another household
member AND
3. The members MUST or INTEND to customarily
purchase and prepare separately.
ACF. Ex. 3, at � 4-2-2.3.
The eligibility worker found that the minor mother had
full care and
control of the child in this case, but the
record does not reflect any
findings as to whether food
in the household was purchased or prepared
separately.
However, the State submitted the following statement,
dated June 30, 1993, from the minor mother: "I cook and
eat
separately from my mother." State Reply Br.,
unnumbered attachment
5. As mentioned above, the
grandmother was included in the unit for
Food Stamp
purposes, but not for AFDC purposes.
Analysis
The State argued that the grandmother was not eligible
for inclusion in
the AU because the State manual
"contains no provisions for including a
non-caretaker
senior parent in the same AFDC unit with the minor parent
and the child." Notice of Appeal at 2. The State
contended
that the AFDC unit was thus correctly
configured and the only error was the
failure to remove
the grandmother from the Food Stamp unit.
1/
ACF argued that, under the ASSETS program, the
configuration of the AFDC
unit depended on the
configuration of the Food Stamps unit, since the State
CFAM provided that the minor parent and child could be a
separate AFDC
unit only if they were a separate unit for
Food Stamps purposes. ACF
Br. at 3. Since it is
undisputed that the grandmother was included in
the Food
Stamps unit, the minor mother and child could not
constitute a
separate unit for AFDC purposes. ACF
further contended that the
requirement in the federal
regulations for deeming the grandmother's income
available to the assistance unit was not waived under the
ASSETS project
waiver, because the waiver provisions
expressly treat the household as a
single economic unit
unless the minor parent is treated as a separate Food
Stamps unit.
We agree with ACF that the State has not established that
the ASSETS
program provides a basis for waiving the
deeming requirements of 45 C.F.R. �
233.20(a)(3) where a
minor parent and her parent are part of the same Food
Stamps unit.
The State manual does permit a minor parent to form a
separate household
when parental control is not exercised
over the minor parent or the child
and the household
members customarily purchase and prepare their food
separately. Here, the State submitted some evidence of
separate
food preparation. State Reply Br., unnumbered
attachment 5. The
statement on which the State relied
for this purpose is inadequate because
no reference was
made to separate purchasing of food. In addition, the
statement is in the present tense and dated June 30,
1993, so it is not
clear whether the minor parent was
also claiming that she prepared food
separately as of the
review month a year earlier. Most importantly,
however,
even if the statement established that the minor parent
and the
grandmother purchased and prepared food
separately as of the review month,
that would only
establish that the State could permissibly have treated
them as separate Food Stamps households. Section 4-2-2.1
of the
CFAM allowed, but did not require, that separate
units be established if
separate food purchasing and
preparation were demonstrated.
The CFAM provision on AFDC unit composition at section
4-2-3 provided for
establishing a separate AFDC unit only
if the minor parent and the
grandmother were separate
units for Food Stamps purposes. It is not
sufficient to
satisfy this provision if they were not separate units
for
Food Stamps purposes but might have been. 2/ We
therefore
conclude that the minor parent and child here
could not properly be treated
as a separate AFDC unit.
The State treated the issue in this case as whether the
grandmother was
erroneously excluded from the AFDC unit.
The State contended that no
state or federal provision
required including her and that she never applied
for
AFDC. State Reply Br. at 2. However, the issue is not
whether the grandmother was required to be included in
the AFDC unit,
but whether her income and resources were
required to be considered in
determining the amount of
the AFDC payment. For that purpose, the
State's request
to waive the deeming requirements of federal law (which
would have included the grandmother's income and
resources under the
circumstances here) specifically
stated that the ASSETS program would treat
the family as
"one economic unit." ACF Ex. 2, at 29. The only
relevant exception is "if the minor parent is a separate
Food Stamp
household," which was not the case here. Id.
Thus, whether or
not the grandmother applied for AFDC,
she was part of the economic unit for
determining the
amount of the AFDC payment under the ASSETS program.
Conclusion
For the reasons explained above, we sustain ACF's
determination that the
assistance unit was ineligible in
the review month.
___________________________
Peggy
McFadden-Elmore
___________________________
Leslie
Weyn
___________________________
Leslie
A. Sussan
* * * Footnotes * * *
1. The State asserted that the initial
Regional
Office difference notification relied only on the
violation of
the federal regulatory deeming requirement,
while the reconsideration
decision addressed the ASSETS
program waivers and concluded that the Food
Stamp
household could not be reconfigured in retrospect to
exclude the
grandmother's income from the AFDC unit. The
State argued that ACF
should not be permitted to sustain
its finding of a QC error on a basis not
given in the
initial decision. Notice of Appeal at 3. While the
analysis underlying ACF's conclusion was clearer in the
reconsideration
decision, the initial notification
referred to the ASSETS program and gave
ample notice of
the basis of the difference. We therefore do not agree
with the State that ACF changed the reason for its
difference
finding.
2. The State submitted a
revised version of section
4-2-3 of the CFAM (effective date November 1,
1992) with
its reply brief which stated that the "minor parent may
be
considered the head of the AFDC unit only if the minor
parent is or could be
in her own [Food Stamps]
unit . . . except that she purchases and prepares
food
with other household members." We need not consider
whether
the change in the language of section 4-2-3 would
alter the result in this
case, because the State agreed
that the May 1, 1991 revision quoted in the
text was in
effect during the review month. Letter from Joel
Sanders, Director, Public Assistance Division of Alabama
Department of
Human Resources, dated October 18, 1993.
The State suggested in a
telephone conference in this
case, held on October 15, 1993, that the
revised language
was simply intended as a clarification of the existing
policy. However, the transmittal for the November 1,
1992 revision
stated that this "clarification may be
different from that provided in
previous interpretations
or training." Letter from Joel Sanders,
Attachment 1.
For QC purposes, we must measure the correctness of the
payment in this case by the rules in effect at the review
month, not by
later, different interpretations of policy
which could not have been
available at the time.