This is the seventh wave of a program assessment of the family daycare homes in the CACFP, 2011. The assessment provides a national estimate of the share of CACFP-participating family daycare homes that are approved for an incorrect level of per meal reimbursement, or reimbursement "tier," for their circumstances.
The Access, Participation, Eligibility, and Certification study found that one in five children certified for free or reduced- price meals in school year 2005-2006 was erroneously certified or incorrectly denied benefits. This study builds on APEC with three objectives: Develop an econometric model to identify indicators of local education authorities with high risk of certification error. Identify the key relationships between certification error and local characteristics. Provide a Web-based monitoring tool that will apply model parameters to annual Verification Summary Report data.
This is the first of a series of annual reports which will assess the administrative error associated with school food authorities’ approval of applications for free and reduced-price school meals. More than 95 percent of students who were approved for benefits on the basis of an application were receiving correct benefits, based on the information in the application files. In school year 2004/05, 3.5 percent of all students who submitted an application for free/reduced-price meal benefits had an administrative error in the processing of their applications.
Using Food Stamp Quality Control data from fiscal year 2000, this analysis suggests that the simplified reporting policies adopted by states in 2004 could have lowered error rates by 1.2 to 1.5 percentage points.
The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 directed the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct a study of the feasibility of using computer technology to reduce over-certification, waste, fraud and abuse in the National School Lunch Program.