Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Plan ... - New Mexico Kids

• CYFD conducts child care assistance payment audits prior to releasing any payments. The
following are methods used in conducting the payment audits:
• Generate exception reports which identify all duplicate payments and all payments over a set
dollar amount.
• Excel tools are used to cross check and validate that the calculated payments are correct and
accurate.
• CYFD generates a number of other monthly and weekly reports from which major fluctuation
in trends can be identified in addition to individual administrative errors.
Conduct quality control or quality assurance reviews:
• The Improper Payments Unit (IPU) conducts at least 276 reviews per year, in accordance
with the Improper Authorization for Payment Data Collection Instructions. The IPU Team
identifies administrative errors and informs Regional Managers of potential program
violations. Additionally, the past couple of years the IPU has reviewed substantially more that
the ACF-402 requirement of 276 reviews. The IPU staffs 3.5 FTE to review child care cases
on an ongoing basis .
Conduct supervisory staff reviews:
• Supervisory staff review a percentage of their caseworkers’ cases using the IAP Record
Review Worksheet.
Conduct data mining to identify trends:
• Data mining is conducted when errors are flagged through a system report and further
investigation is required.
Train staff on policy and/or audits:
• All staff are re-trained on child care assistance policy when policy is revised and new staff are
trained on policy when they begin work. Staff are also trained on common errors in case
reviews.
Other: Since SFY 2003, CYFD has incorporated numerous FACTS system edits that prohibit a
caseworker from making administrative errors, or at least warns the caseworker of situations he or
she should be aware of before moving forward in the system. CYFD has invested substantial
resources into making “front end” improvements toward the prevention of fraud and administrative
errors.
CYFD has implemented several measures to address program integrity, as described above. Due to
limited funding, CYFD has not implemented measures which would require additional staff. However,
as funding becomes available, CYFD continues to look at additional measures by which would
anticipate an increase to staff to conduct provider audits.
If the Lead Agency checked none, please describe what measures the
Lead Agency has or plans to put in place to address program integrity:
N/A
1.3.4. What strategies will the Lead Agency use to investigate and collect
improper payments due to program violations or administrative error?
Check and describe in the chart below which strategies, if any, the Lead Agency will
use for each of the following areas: Unintentional program violations (UPV),
intentional program violations (IPV) and/or fraud, and administrative error as
defined in your State/Territory. The Lead Agency has the flexibility to recover
misspent funds as a result of errors. The Lead Agency is required to
recover misspent funds as a result of fraud (98.60(i)).
CCDF Plan Effective Date: October 1, 2013
Amended Effective: _____
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