Case Status at Closure (Feb. 2004)
Question 1: “Do the feds look at the child’s legal status indicator on a closed case? There are instances where the case is closed correctly but the indicator is not right. Do we need to have the CA worker go in correct this even though the case is closed?”
Answer 1: According to the DCS Director’s Office, when the feds audit for the OCSE 157, they look for children with paternity established, if the case was active at any point in the year. So, if the case was active at some point in the federal fiscal year, it should be corrected even though the case is currently closed. If the case was not active in the federal fiscal year, it shouldn’t be pulled for the audit. Also, keep in mind that transferring a case from a IVD status to a NIVD status is considered as a case closure from the federal perspective. The federal fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30, which is different than the state fiscal year.
Question 2: Why are we reviewing for state fiscal year (on our self-assessments) when feds review for federal fiscal year? Also, when transferring from ivd to nivd, do we have to do a cs-137 and a cs-31 per closure procedures? I was under the impression that with a npa case with npa arrears only that we just changed from ivd to nivd status and refer to psi am I wrong?”
Answer 2: “Per the DCS Director’s Office, the OCSE 157, which is the report that has the data reliability audit conducted by the federal government, is required to be run on federal fiscal year.
The state is required to do the self-assessment on a 12-month period. It doesn’t have to be the federal fiscal year. When the self-assessment reviews were set up, the state fiscal year was used. I don’t know if there was a particular reason for using the state fiscal year. If we change it now, we have to make sure we don’t have any time period that wasn’t reviewed for self-assessment. This means we would have to do self-assessments for July thru June and then in the following September do self-assessment for October thru September.
According to the feds, the same rules apply for transferring a case from IVD to NIVD as for closing a case. Even though we will continue to collect the payments, we won’t be providing enforcement services. So, if a CS 137 is required for the reason the case is going to NIVD, such as applicant failed to cooperate, a CS 137 is required. If the applicant requests case closure, a CS 137 is not required. Although the CS 31a is required by state procedures, it is not a federal requirement associated with case closure.”