PPER Email 2015-12: DOR Wage Match

DOR Wage Match compares the wage information listed on BEACON’s Earned Income page, for all household members in an active, pending or ineligible status, with the wage information reported to DOR. If the data does not match exactly (FEIN, Start Date, and wages within $100) a Match will be created and the data will appear as a pending item on the PI Checklist. Until all outstanding matches are dispositioned, a hard edit on the Interview Wrap up page will prevent the authorization of an EBC Request. The only exceptions are Annual Reporting (AR) Transitional Benefit Alternative (TBA) SNAP households not in their recertification/interim reporting period, and Bay State Cap households.

DTA has achieved $12.8 million in cost avoidance through the Program Integrity Checklist in the first two quarters of operation, but it is also apparent that some of the DOR wage match notices issued included income from previously known employers of clients, non-countable income or trivial amounts. This matching is permissible, but may have an impact on vulnerable clients without achieving commensurate program goals. As a result we have decided to temporarily suspend the automatic generation of the DOR Employment Verification Notice until a review is completed and reprograming of this match can be accomplished.

During this review period, case managers will continue to process all outstanding matches and will take any appropriate action required to determine continued eligibility as soon as possible. At application, recertification, redetermination and case maintenance activities, if there are any outstanding DOR Wage Matches, the case manager will review the data on the match and compare it to the data on the Earned Income page and/or within the case record. If the data is already known to the Department, the case manager will disposition the match and update the narrative tab. If the data is not known to the Department and the case manager determines it would have no impact on eligibility, the case manager will disposition the match and explain the reason on the Narrative tab. If the data is not known to the Department and the case manager determines that additional verification is required, the case manager will issue a DOR Employment Verification notice. For SNAP cases subject to AR and TBA and Bay State CAP certification types, matches will only be processed at recertification or at interim reporting. If a DOR Employment Verification notice was created the match must not be dispositioned until verification is received. If the client provides verification, the case manager must process the verification in accordance with existing policy and procedures for match disposition. If the client fails to provide verification by the date due on the DOR Employment Verification Notice, BEACON will automatically close the case for failure to provide verification and the Narrative tab will be automatically annotated with the action taken.