Department of Health and Human Services
Departmental Appeals Board
AFDC QUALITY CONTROL REVIEW PANEL
SUBJECT: Illinois Department
of Public Aid
Docket No. A-94-167
Decision No. QC72
DATE: November 2, 1994
DECISION
The Illinois Department of Public Aid (Illinois) appealed
the quality
control (QC) review determination of the
Regional Administrator of the
Administration for Children
and Families (ACF) in Illinois QC case
15709. In its
appeal request, Illinois acknowledged that the issue in
this appeal was the same as that decided by the QC Review
Panel (Panel)
in previous Illinois Dept. of Public Aid
decisions, DAB QC48 (1993) and DAB
QC63 (1994), which
resolved earlier Illinois appeals.
The central issue in all of these Illinois appeals is
whether Illinois
improperly calculated the initial
payment amount of Aid to Families with
Dependent Children
(AFDC). Illinois contended that it was proper to
prorate
a recipient's initial AFDC payment from the date of the
recipient's approval for AFDC until the day before their
cases were
placed on Illinois' regular automated payment
roll (the initial prorated
entitlement or IPE period)
where the IPE period was longer than one fiscal
month.
Illinois contended further that its IPE methodology was
consistent with the Social Security Act (Act), federal
regulations, the
AFDC Quality Control Manual (QCM), and
its own State plan. In these
appeals, ACF contended that
instead of paying for the month of application
and the
next fiscal month (which made up the IPE period) on a
prorated
basis, Illinois should have prorated that part
of the payment which
consisted of the days remaining in
the application month and then paid a
flat grant for the
part of the payment which represented the next fiscal
month. In Decision No. QC48, the Panel sustained ACF's
determination regarding the calculation of the IPE
payment.
1/
Regarding the appeal in question here, Illinois QC
reviewed a $721.00
payment made during the December 1992
review month. Illinois QC found
that the recipient was
underpaid $12.00, stating that the local office
incorrectly calculated the IPE period (November 2, 1992
to December 31,
1992) as 59 days rather than 60 days.
Federal QC review found the
December 1992 review month
payment of $367.00 to be correct. Federal
QC determined
that the December review month consisted of the calendar
month of December only, disregarding the prorated payment
for the period
November 2 to 30, 1992.
We conclude, in the absence of any new argument or
evidence in support of
Illinois' position regarding the
calculation of the IPE payment in this
appeal, and for
the reasons discussed in Decision No. QC48 (which we
incorporate herein by reference), that Illinois
incorrectly calculated
the payment for the IPE period in
Docket No. A-94-167. Illinois should
have prorated that
part of the IPE payment which consisted of the days
remaining in the application month and then paid a flat
grant for that
part of the payment which represented the
next fiscal month.
Accordingly, we uphold the ACF Regional Administrator's
determination in
this appeal.
Sara B. Anderson
Maxine Winerman
Leslie A. Weyn
* * * Footnotes * * *
1. In
Decision No. DAB QC48, the Panel
remanded Docket No. A-93-101 to ACF to
determine whether
income received by the recipient during the review month
should be applied in full or in prorated part only
against the AFDC
payment for which the recipient was
eligible. This question was not
raised by the parties in
the present appeal.
(..continued)