IV-A INTERFACE

Kim Britt – Operational Manager, Stanislaus County DCSS Tina Lorenzo – Senior Child Support Specialist, Solano County DCSS Jennifer Su – Child Support Specialist Supervisor, Contra Costa County DCSS

IV-A Transactions C-IV Kim Britt Operational Manager Stanislaus County

What is a IV-A Transaction? A transaction will:  Notify IV-D when case needs to be opened or reopened  Notify IV-D to add new child to existing case  Notify IV-D when participant on case leaves the home  Notify IV-D when Custodial Parent (CP) is receiving aid in a new county  Notify IV-D when aid discontinues for CP and/or child  Notify IV-D good cause has been claimed/granted  Update participant demographics

What Generates a Transaction? ■Request for IV-A assistance received for child  Parent/guardian applied for assistance  Child entered foster care ■IV-A caseworker determines eligibility  Interviews customer  Obtains names and information about everyone in household  Determines the role of household members  Identifies if intact family

What Generates a Transaction? Program Persons (Listed on Application) Program Persons and Case Members MEM Eligible for, or has applied for, assistance MMO Eligible for Medi-Cal assistance only FRE, FRI, FSO, UP Not eligible

What Generates a Transaction? Select Absent Parent to View Support Questionnaire Page

What Generates a Transaction?

Types of Service Requests  CM114 – Child records do not match but IV-A case is known to CSE  Usually received to add a new child to existing open case  CM119 – IV-A case unknown to CSE  New IV-D case is needed  CM120 – Closed IV-D case match found  Review need to reopen case  CM121 – Open IV-D case in another county found  Inter-County Transfer (ICT) review needed  CM122 – CP, Non-Custodial Parent NCP or Other Parent (OP) records did not match, but IV-A case exists in CSE (child record matched)  Update needed to existing open case

The Handshake ■ Identifier starting with “C” is a CP or child identifier. ■ Identifier starting with “A” is a NCP identifier.

The Handshake

IV-A Transaction List

Member Transaction

Pending/Held Transactions Processed – All transaction types that have been processed by LCSA user or CSE Rejected – Referral and Service Request transactions that were rejected by LCSA user or CSE during batch processing Pending – Service Request that has not been worked Held – Any participant transactions that have not been evaluated by CSE waiting for an earlier Service Request to be processed Partial – Public assistance aid and/or demographic transactions are applied to a pending Service Request

The Handshake IV-A/IV-D Handshake

Feeling Stuck?

My Contact Information: Kim Britt Stanislaus County DCSS Operational Manager (209)

IV-A Transactions CalWIN Tina Lorenzo Senior Child Support Specialist Solano County

CalWIN to CSE  CalWIN for the LCSAs is web based.  Limited screens and information.  Some LCSAs may have access to production version used by the IV-A

CalWIN Screen Shot

CalWIN IV-A ID Number 48 1Bxxxxx A1 48=County Number 1Bxxxxx = IV-A Case Number A1=IV-A Person Member or Absent Parent ID

CalWIN Person Number

CalWIN - Absent Parent

Solano Case Opening  Case opening is handled by the Establishment Team (EST).  Service Requests and Non-Welfare applications are assigned based upon the NP’s last name.  Case remains in EST until a Child Support Order is obtained.  Ownership of the case.

Using the Service Request (SR) Tool  To assign SRs by the NP’s last name, we must look at the SR in CSE to get that information.  Goal is to reduce handoff of cases.  The SRs (CM119, CM120, CM114 and CM122) are assigned/delegated in the SR Tool.

SR Tool and Compliance  Out of compliance on Federal Audit  20 calendar days compliance date in the SR Tool differs from the Federal 20 calendar days

SR Tool Delegation Report

SR Tool Screenshot

Solano SR Tool Workaround  Office policy was set to work SRs and NW apps within 10 calendar days.  Export to Excel through the SR Tool.  Using a Macro, it re-formats the information and will add the 10 day and 20 day due dates.

Exporting SR List to Excel

SR Tool

The Future of Service Requests

Service Request Improvements  Service Request Workgroup convened in April  60,000 new Service Requests are created monthly statewide.  30% to 70% are being manually reviewed and then rejected by LCSA staff.

Request For Considerations Submitted  RFC  IV-A Service Request Improvements - Part 1  RFC  Service Request Improvements - Part 2

RFC Table 7 in the Case Opening QRG has a listing of case closure reasons and what criteria CSE uses in evaluating whether to create a SR or reject it.

Current Criteria

New Criteria Rather than create a SR, CSE will create a Rejected Referral (RFR):  NP is deceased RFR-8  NP is on SSI RFR-8  Children Emancipated New RFR type  Intact Family/PAT not at issue New RFR type

Pending Inter-County Transfer (ICT)  If initiated, CSE will not create additional tasks for 30 days. CSE may be updated with a box to be checked with, ICT is initiated. Unable to Locate NP  If no new info on the inbound transaction, referral should be rejected. New Criteria

RFC Application Search Page Improvement Add column to reflect the task ID

Other Improvements Suggested Improve CSE functionality  IV-A - Handshake  Participant Detail Page  Navigation through SR processing screens  Expand SR “rejection reasons”/Closure reasons  Delay sending the case opening packet  Add incarceration date of release  Attestation Statements  Match Dependents, CPs and NPs

Improvements to the SR Tool  Ability to sort by the NP’s last name  Check functionality of the auto-delegation feature. Improvements

My Contact Information: Tina Lorenzo Senior Child Support Specialist Solano County DCSS (707)

Managing the IV-A Workload Jennifer Su Child Support Specialist Supervisor Contra Costa County

IV-A Interface - An Information Highway

Data Flow from IV-A to CSE  CSE processes transactions through the IV-A Interface  Records to the Public Assistance (PA) Transaction List page with unique transaction numbers  Performs participant/case matching and updates against transactions  Creates or rejects Service Requests (SRs) based on complex programming logic  Records transaction errors and produces error reports  Writes tasks

Work, Work, Work!  Contra Costa has a caseload of just under 30,000  Received 15,523 SRs in FFY 2013 and 14,889 in FFY 2014 (half the total caseload!)  Intake team is comprised of 7 SR workers and 2 leads  How is the volume managed?

Time Saving through Electronic Workload Assignment  Contra Costa assigned paper lists through Local Child Support Agency (LCSA) SR Tool  Stand-alone tool that extracts SRs/PA Errors from CSE and tracks status of tasks  Facilitates bundling -- SRs and errors tied to the same IV-A case presented as package  Paper work lists/statistical reports available  Great tool, but creating paper lists was time- consuming

CCC’s Service Request Assignment Tool “SRAT”-- Developed in 2011, out of need for more efficient, electronic work assignment:  Access Data bases include Administrator and User Module  Prioritizes so workers draw SR closest to the 20 day compliance date  Bundles SRs and PA errors under the same IV-A number

Importing Data into SRAT Administrator Module SRs exported from LCSA SR Tool into SRAT:  Admin user exports SRs/PA Errors from LCSA SR Tool into a CSV file  File saved in a processing folder in shared location on network  SRAT Administrator Module is launched from desktop  Module queries processing folder for new files  Module notifies file is ready to import via the SRAT Launch Pad  Administrator uploads data into SRAT by clicking Upload Data and Prioritize Queue button

Administrator Module Launch Pad

Administrator Service Request Assignment Tool Queue

SRAT Caseworker Module

SRAT Caseworker Module Work List Click here to add text. ■Click to edit Master text styles ✷ Second level Third level

Benefits of Electronic SR Assignment  Saves time - on average takes 10 minutes to assign work (took an hour with paper lists)  Lead workers have more time to process casework  Saves paper  Limits confidential documents on desktop  Ability to gage team and individual performance in real time  Reports/statistical tracking

Workload Overflow

Keeping Up!  Important to work all SRs - CSE will hold all transactions under the same IV-A number until after completion of a pending SR  How to keep up with the volume and keep the interface flowing (but not overflowing)?

MACROS for Processing SRs/Clearing Errors What is a Macro?  Macro refers to a tool that performs a series of instructions automatically  AKA - “Robot Caseworker”  Contra Costa uses Macros to handle some of the work coming through the IV-A interface

CM120 MACRO CM120 Macro to pre-screen SR tasks on closed cases:  CM120s represent 15%-20% of SR caseload.  Many cases do not qualify for reopening.  Workers re-review and reject these SRs - timely and repetitive work.  Case closure reasons which more than likely do not qualify to reopen:  Children Emancipated  NCP Unable to Pay, Incarceration (beyond child’s minority)  NCP Unable to Pay Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Institutionalized, Total & Permanent Disability  NCP Lives in Mexico, Exact Location Unknown.

CM120 MACRO Functionality How the CM120 Macro works:  Accesses SR, finds matching CSE case  Compares number of DPs in SR to the closed case  Analyzes case closure reason  If there are NOT more children in the SR than on the case AND if the closure reason matches, the Macro rejects  Otherwise, the Macro skips the SR and moves on to analyze the next task

Accuracy  First 112 SRs rejected by the Macro reviewed  None qualified to be reopened  Monthly % of Macro rejected SRs sampled  Only 5 sampled cases of 1,481 rejected have qualified to be reopened since implementation in 7/2013

Results  From July December 2014: Macro pre- screened 5,299 CM120 tasks  Rejected 1,481 SRs, 28% of total CM120 tasks received  Allowed Intake workers to concentrate on more complex tasks  Can be run behind a locked door, with a darkened screen, without worker intervention  Contributed to backlog reduction

Macro Used to Reject Backlogged CM122 SRs  Last quarter of 2012, Contra Costa had 3,250 backlogged noncompliance CM122 SRs, some as old as 2009  Tasks did not have associated compliance date, and not related to opening, reopening or adding a child to a case  Many were so old--aid had discontinued and SRs no longer needed to be processed  Failure to work an SR causes subsequent transactions to be held  Macro rejected 421 of these tasks, and then reviewed for new tasks to come back

Results  Prior to Macro, staff expended considerable time to review and work through backlog - about a year  Macro rejected last 421 backlogged tasks in a few hours, during break and lunch time  Tasks that still needed to be processed regenerated for worker review  Held transactions were released

Rejected Referral Errors  CSE reports errors encountered while processing incoming IV-A transactions  Not every county chooses to work all errors  Contra Costa primarily works Good Cause errors  Once an SR is generated and worked, workers cleared other error types, a time consuming and repetitive task  Macro now clears errors, allowing workers to devote time to more complex tasks

Macros Submitted to State for Approval  California Central>System Resources>LCSA Centralized Resources>LCSA Automation Programs & Applications  To be used at discretion of LCSA Director

Communication and Clean Data through the Interface

Working With IV-A  Good communication with IV-A is vital  Bad data on the IV-A side causes unnecessary SRs and errors  The CM122 SR task is often associated to incorrect Absent Parent records

Tactics for Improving Communication with IV-A  One SR worker handles all non-compliance tasks, including the CM122  Worker tracks recurring issues due to bad data to ensure correction  Worker uses a “thank you” template and carbons EW’s supervisor when timely corrections made  Quarterly local IV-A/IV-D workgroup  Liaisons/protocol on both sides for questions  IV-D representatives involved in EW new-hire training

A Spoon Full of Sugar

Where are we now?  Since 8/2012, Contra Costa has gone from 4,300 pending SRs to under 400  Working compliance SRs within a week of receipt date  Team of 13 members reduced to 11  One SR staff member shifted to working Non-Aid applications  Non-Aid applications worked within 2-3 days of receipt  Better communication with IV-A reduced CM122 tasks

Managing the IV-A Workload My Contact Information Jennifer Su Contra Costa County DCSS Child Support Specialist Supervisor (925)