TO:	  Commissioners; TA Directors; Staff Development Coordinators

FROM:	Patricia A. Stevens, Deputy Commissioner  Division of Temporary Assistance

SUBJECT:	Providing the Percentage (49%) Earned Income Disregard in Safety Net Assistance Cases With Children

EFFECTIVE DATE:	Immediately

CONTACT PERSON:	1-800-343-8859: Central Team @ extension 3-9344; WMS @ extension 3-7991

	

It has come to our attention that local district social services workers do not always provide the Earned Income Disregard (EID) when the earner is a member of a Safety Net Assistance case with children applying for or in receipt of Safety Net Assistance (18 NYCRR 352.20(c)).   SNA earners whose child is not required to be included in the SNA case also qualify for the EID.  Such non- recipient children are those listed in 18 NYCRR 352.30(a) as not required to be included in the TA household and include SSI recipient children and children on whose behalf adoption subsidy payments are being paid.

Worker failure to provide the EID when appropriate on SNA cases may be due in part to the fact that Automated Budgeting Eligibility Logic (ABEL) will not automatically provide the EID in recipient SNA budgets as it does in recipient FA budgets.  For Family Assistance cases, the only time that the worker has to prompt ABEL regarding the EID is at the initial eligibility determination.  Then the worker must input “1” (If eligible, give disregard) or “2” (Calculate with disregard).      

ABEL will not provide the EID in SNA budgets unless the worker inputs the appropriate code both for applying and recipient households in the disregard indicator (I) field.  For SNA cases without children, the disregard indicator field should be left blank.  For recipient SNA households with children on the case (or children not required to be included per 18 NYCRR 352.30(a)), the appropriate disregard indicator is “2”.  Cases that were among those mass-converted from FA to SNA were given the EID at conversion.  However, the worker must input “2” (Calculate with disregard) the next time that a new ABEL budget is done on a converted case.  Once the “2” is in place for the income line, it will remain until the worker makes the decision to remove it because the SNA case no longer qualifies for an EID.

SNA cases that should have received the EID but did not must have the reduction or closing action corrected.    

A new ABEL code will be developed for the disregard indicator field.  That code will tell ABEL not to give the EID.  When that code is available, the field will blink unless an indicator is input.  While the worker must still correctly determine which SNA cases qualify for the EID and which do not, the new code and edit will force a decision.  Information about that new code and edit will be forthcoming.