TO:	  Commissioners, Food Stamp and TA Directors

FROM:	Russell Sykes, Deputy Commissioner, Division of Employment & Transitional Supports

SUBJECT:	  Problem with Recent NYSNIP 24-Month Interim Report Mailing

EFFECTIVE DATE:	Immediately

CONTACT PERSON:	Food Stamp Bureau at 1-800-343-8859, ext. 3-1469

Some issues have recently been identified with respect to this week’s mailing of the Upstate NYSNIP 24-Month Interim Reports.  Specifically, districts have reported instances where clients have received more than one 24–Month Interim Report.  The erroneous letters each listed a different Unit Code on the return address of the envelope and were mailed separately to the client.

Local Districts receiving inquiries from clients affected by this event should advise the clients to return just one of the received mailers to fulfill their reporting obligation.

We also have been informed that a number of local district offices have received Interim Reports addressed to the agency without a client name or any other identifying case information listed on the report.  These Interim Reports were intended for NYSNIP participants who either have the County DSS listed on the SDX as their SSI Representative Payee or who are Adult Services clients of the local district.  The local district address was listed in the ‘Mailing Address’ field on WMS for the food stamp cases of such households.

We regret any confusion and inconvenience to local district staff and to NYSNIP participants that may have resulted from these occurrences.

Both of these situations will be corrected in time for the next NYSNIP 24-Month Interim Report Mailing.  To prevent unnecessary closings of food stamp cases for affected households, upstate districts are directed not to close any NYSNIP cases appearing on the WINR 8115 (NYSOTDA NYSNIP 24-Month Contact Letter List) produced for May 2006 with a report ‘Return Due Date’ of June 10, 2006, for failure to respond to their Interim Contact Letter.  Reports that are returned may be processed as appropriate.  Normal processing standards, including the closing of cases for failure to respond to the report, will resume for those interim reports that will be sent in June and due to be returned by July 10th.  For further information on processing these reports, please refer to GIS 06TA/DC014, dated May 11, 2006.

Any local district that has its address listed in the ‘Mailing Address’ field on WMS for NYSNIP participants who are Adult Services clients or for whom the local district is the SSI Representative Payee will continue to receive the interim report mailers for such clients, however, the client name will now appear on the report.

Questions regarding either of these issues or to report other issues associated with this mailing should be directed to the following OTDA/NYSNIP staff.

Denis Sheehan - 518-473-6352
Lisa Le Vielle – 518- 474-8538

Both Ms. LeVielle and Mr. Sheehan are listed in the OTDA Outlook Directory.  For local district staff who do not normally send and receive e-mail via the OTDA network, their e-mail addresses are as follows:

Lisa.LeVielle@otda.state.ny.us
Denis.Sheehan@otda.state.ny.us