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terminating eligible households from SNAP based upon changes that they were not required to report and saves time spent following up on minor changes. Eligibility staff members are also required to send a pend notice if the unclear information appears to present significantly conflicting information about household circumstances from that used at the time of certification. Significantly conflicting information is any situation in which the agency has just received new information which calls into question whether the information presented at application or recertification was accurate or not. See examples below: Example 1: A household of 1 applies and is approved for benefits. During the certification, the agency learns that the customer is living with others and had been at the time the application was submitted. It is now unclear what the relationship of these other individuals is to the head of household, and whether the household should have been approved as a household of 1 because this new information significantly conflicts with what was reported at the time of application.

Example 2: A household of 3 submits a recertification reporting no changes and is reapproved for benefits. During the new certification period, the agency learns that one of the household members is a college student whose semester began prior to the new certification period. It is now unclear if this household member should have been included in the SNAP household because the new information significantly conflicts with the information the agency had when processing the redetermination.

Eligibility staff may follow up with a general notice to the household allowing ten days to provide information on a voluntary basis if that information would result in an increase in benefits, but the State may not take adverse action if the household does not respond. In these instances, we would not PEND the case, we would send a general notice allowing the household 10 days to submit verification voluntarily. Benefits increase the month after a reported/discovered change has been submitted if the verifications are submitted within 10 days. If verifications are submitted in excess of 10 days, the change will go into effect the month following the date the verifications were received. How do eligibility staff respond to unclear information about households subject to Change Reporting? If an eligibility staff member receives unclear information about a household that is fewer than 60 days old relative to the current month of participation and would, if accurate, have to be reported per reporting requirements, the eligibility staff member must send a pend notice and follow procedures for making changes. If the unclear information appears to present significantly conflicting information from that used at the time of certification, the eligibility staff must send a pend notice and follow the procedures for making changes. If the information is not fewer than 60 days old relative to the current month of participation, was not required to be reported, or does not present significantly conflicting information from that used at the time of certification, the eligibility staff shall not act on this information or require the household to provide information until the household’s next certification action. For example, if eligibility staff received unclear information that is fewer than 60 days old relative to the current month of participation and indicates a Change Reporting household’s income increased by $200, the eligibility staff would need to send a pend notice because the household is required to report changes in income of $125 or more. If, however, this information was older than 60 days relative to the current month of participation, the eligibility staff would not send a pend notice to the household and would wait until the next scheduled contact to follow up with the household. NOTE- When applying the 60-day filter to unclear information please use the date of the change relative to the month it was reported to determine the age. Consider only if the actual change happened more than 60 days before it was reported. For example: If a change is reported on