Allowable Deductions

(a) When determining eligibility and the amount of assistance for all categories of medical assistance, an allowable deduction from the income available to the assistance group shall be made, in an amount which has been or must be paid by an individual for non-employment-related types of expenses, including the following:

(1) Training expenses as described in (e) below;

(2) Garnishments from an individual’s earnings to repay a legal debt;

(3) Allocated income, as specified in He-W 654.21; and

(4) Any court-ordered payments, as described in (f) below, including but not limited to child support, alimony, and guardianship fees.

(b) The deduction described in (a) above shall be allowed for:

(1) Any individual whose needs are included in the assistance group; and

(2) Any individual whose income is counted even if his or her needs are not included in the assistance group.

(c) The amount of the deduction shall be the amount of the verified expense.

(d) Allowable deductions shall be applied as follows:

(1) For medical assistance non-nursing facility cases in which there is a nonapplicant spouse, the allowable deductions shall be subtracted from the amount which represents the monthly combined earned income, less all applicable disregards to earned income as described in He-W 654.14 and He-W 654.15, plus all unearned income;

(2) For adult category non-nursing facility cases in which there is an applicant spouse, the allowable deductions shall be subtracted from the amounts which represent the individual monthly net incomes of the applicant and the applicant spouse; and

(3) For nursing facility cases, allowable deductions shall not be subtracted for the categorically needy eligibility determination as described in He-W 654.02, but shall be the first subtraction from the net income amount for the medically needy eligibility determination as described in He-W 654.02.

(e) Training expenses shall be an allowable deduction when all the following circumstances are met:

(1) The individual is enrolled in and regularly attending at least on a half-time basis, a program having an organized curriculum with the specific objective of training individuals for gainful employment;

(2) The training program is sponsored by public education or the federal government, or is offered by private schools for a particular trade;

(3) The individual has not received reimbursement for the training expense from any other source, or if partial reimbursement is made, the remaining expense shall be an allowable deduction;

(4) The training expense is not part of an employment expense disregard, because the individual has no earned income, or the training is totally unrelated to the individual's employment; and

(5) The expense occurs on at least a monthly basis.