DEPARTMENTAL GRANT APPEALS BOARD
Department of Health and Human Services
SUBJECT: Maryland Department of DATE: April 20, 1989 Human
Resources Docket No 89-24 Decision No. 1039
DECISION
The Maryland Department of Human Resources (State) appealed a
determination by the Administration for Children, Youth and Families,
Office of Human Development Services (Agency), dated December 16, 1988,
finding the State ineligible for $1,296,770 in fiscal year 1982 funds
under section 427 of title IV-B of the Social Security Act. As
explained below, we sustain this determination.
The Board previously reviewed a determination by the Agency that the
State was ineligible for FY 1982 section 427 funds on the basis of a
compliance review performed by the Agency. In Maryland Dept. of Human
Resources, DAB No. 706 (1985), the Board rejected arguments by the State
challenging the substantive and procedural validity of the compliance
review process but reversed the Agency's findings regarding three of the
sample cases included in the Agency's case record survey. The Board
then remanded the appeal to the Agency to continue reviewing FY 1982
cases pursuant to the sequential sampling method until there was a
sufficient number of cases to find the State either eligible or
ineligible for the section 427 funds.
The Agency subsequently issued a decision (undated but received by the
State on January 14, 1987) finding the State ineligible for the funds
based on a continued review of the sampled cases. The Board remanded
the State's appeal of this determination to the Agency without issuing a
decision, however, based on the parties' agreement that a third
compliance review was required because cases involving children who were
already 18 or who turned 18 during the review were improperly excluded
from the continued review. Board Docket No. 87-26, Remand Order dated
September 9, 1987.
The State's appeal here is from the Agency's determination, based on a
third compliance review, that the State was ineligible for the FY 1982
section 427 funds. Specifically, the Agency found that the section 427
requirements were not met in 20 out of 39 cases reviewed. In DAB No.
706, the Board upheld the Agency's findings in 14 of the 20 failed
cases; thus, the Agency's most recent determination involved six
additional cases not previously considered by the Board.
In response to an inquiry by the Board in this appeal, the State stated
that it did not contest the Agency's findings in the six additional
cases. Letter from Davis to Ballard dated February 23, 1989, p. 1. The
State chose not to submit a brief in this appeal; however, it moved that
it be permitted to submit an information request to the Agency seeking
to identify any cases in which the Agency has found a state eligible for
section 427 funds after finding that the state failed the case record
survey. Since the Board denied this motion in a ruling dated April 6,
1989, and since we rejected in DAB No. 706 the State's arguments about
why the State should be found eligible even if it failed the case record
survey, there is nothing further for the Board to decide.
Conclusion
Accordingly, based on the analysis in DAB No. 706, and on the State's
failure to contest the six additional cases subsequently failed by the
Agency, we sustain the Agency's determination that the State was
ineligible for FY 1982 section 427 funds. The record for this decision
consists of the record made in Docket Nos. 84-33, 87-26 and 89-24.
________________________________ Donald F. Garrett
________________________________ Norval D. (John) Settle
________________________________ Judith A. Ballard Presiding
Board