SALT LAKE CITY — An audit released Tuesday raised concerns about some Utahns' state-awarded child care assistance benefits being renewed without a proper annual review of their eligibility.
The Office of the State Auditor said in a report that it sampled 60 households that receive child care assistance benefits from the Department of Workforce Services, and found that for two such households, "caseworkers re-established eligibility without having the customers complete an annual case review."
"As a result, benefits were paid to these customers for a period of time in which eligibility had not been properly determined," the audit report said.
In a third case, "the caseworker re-established eligibility for a period greater than 12 months," which "could have resulted in benefits being paid to the customer outside of the allowed eligibility period," the audit concluded.
The Department of Workforce Services administers various types of child care assistance programs to Utahns, dependant on income levels and other eligibility criteria. Eligibility for such assistance is redetermined after each one-year period of receiving benefits.
The audit report exhorted the department to be sure to "use proper case reviews to re-establish eligibility every 12 months." Failing to do so, it said, "can result in inappropriate child care benefit payments" and noncompliance with grant agreements with the federal government.
The Department of Workforce Services said in a formal reply that it agreed with the bulk of the audit's findings that raised concerns about eligibility reviews. The agency said that in response it enlisted the help of the Department of Technology Services "to implement a system lock-in for the review period of child care cases."
Workforce Services said the new feature will "help support the 12-month review requirement by not allowing the system to change a review period when action is taken" on a recipient's account for an unrelated reason.
Child support
Auditors said they also sampled the cases of 60 Utahns who had benefitted from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a cash benefit frequently referred to as welfare, who had also been issued "child support noncooperation notices" by the state.
Federal law says those found to be "not cooperating with the state in … enforcing a (child) support order" must have their benefits from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program reduced, and states may choose to altogether end such benefits for those recipients.
Still, among the 60 sample cases reviewed in which recipients have been served noncooperation notices related to child support, auditors found two cases where the Utah Department Workforce Services "did not appropriately reduce or deny benefits" to that person, the report said.
The report concluded that was the fault of poor communication within the department.
"Inadequate communication regarding child support noncooperation may allow continuation of federal support to customers to whom support should be reduced or denied," the report said.
The Department of Workforce Services said in its response to auditors that it agreed with the finding and promised to "identify a solution to this data sharing inadequacy … so that appropriate action can be taken on cases timely."
Record keeping
The audit also found that the Department of Workforce Services does not actively monitor how many Utah recipients currently benefitting from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program have been receiving that benefit for more than 60 months, even though federal law requires that number must be less than 20 percent of all the program's recipients in a given year.
The audit report found that "program management did not understand the requirement" fully.
"Failure to monitor long-term assistance as described above may result in noncompliance with federal earmarking requirements," the report warned.
The department responded to the audit by promising to "prepare a report annually" that examines the percentage of current Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients receiving benefits for greater than 60 months.
Workforce Services also reassured auditors that, upon a review looking back through 2014, program recipients who fall into that category have not exceeded 1.5 percent of all recipients.