FNS Documents & Resources

In order to ensure efficient and effective program delivery, this memorandum clarifies existing statutory, regulatory and policy guidance regarding the documentation required for a QC case file, second party reviews, state quality control requests for policy interpretations, and requirements for federal access to state systems.

FNS is issuing this memorandum in an effort to clarify the characteristics of BBCE programs and the actions states must take to ensure compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements.

Since the Sept. 10, 2015 (80 FR 54410) publication of the final rule, Clarification of Eligibility of Fleeing Felons, FNS received several questions regarding its implementation. FNS released a Q&A in response to those questions on March 8, 2016. Since that time, FNS has received additional questions and therefore, issued this second Q&A to address them.

This memo clarifies both how states must treat Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) for the purposes of the ABAWD work requirement and identifies obsolete statutory references to programs under the WIOA.

SNAP’s QC system uses a tolerance level to set the threshold for determining which errors are included in the national payment error rate calculation. For FY 2017, the tolerance threshold will remain at $38.

This memorandum provides the fiscal year 2017 Cost-of-Living-Adjustments to SNAP maximum allotments, income eligibility standards, and deductions. COLAs are effective as of Oct. 1, 2016.

This memorandum provides additional implementation guidance regarding the final rule titled the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Review of Major Changes in Program Design and Management Evaluations (“Major Changes Rule”) published in the Federal Register on Jan. 19, 2016.

The attached questions and answers provide additional policy clarification responding to state agency questions concerning the interim final rule titled SNAP Employment and Training Program Monitoring, Oversight and Reporting Measures published in the Federal Register on March 24, 2016.

FNS offered state agencies the opportunity to test whether using Quarterly Wage Report data was sufficiently accurate to verify and project earned income in certain SNAP cases. Two state agencies, Texas and Utah, agreed to participate and run projects that ran through 2014 and 2015.

The SNAP quality control system measures the accuracy of State eligibility and benefit determinations. In fiscal year (FY) 2012, QC's measurement of errors in cases that were denied, terminated and suspended was renamed from the negative error rate to the case and procedural error rate. The name change was accompanied by a new review process that takes into account customer service aspects of negative actions, such as timeliness and correctness of the notice, in addition to the accuracy of the determination.