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S N A P M A N U A L

275 (2) Reviews of State Agency's Management Evaluation System FNS will review the Agency’s management evaluation system on a biennial basis; however, FNS may review the Agency's management evaluation system on a more frequent basis if a regular review reveals serious deficiencies in the ME system. The ME review will include but not be limited to a determination of whether or not the Agency is complying with FNS regulations, an assessment of the Agency's methods and procedures for conducting ME reviews, and an assessment of the data collected by the Agency in conducting the reviews. (3) Validation of State Agency error rates FNS will validate the Agency’s payment error rate and under-issuance error rate during each annual quality control review period. Federal validation reviews will be conducted by reviewing against the Food and Nutrition Act and the regulations, taking into account any FNS-authorized waivers to deviate from specific regulatory provisions. FNS must validate the Agency’s negative case error rate when the State Agency’s payment error rate for an annual review period appears to entitle it to an increased share of Federal administrative funding for that period, and its reported negative case error rate for that period is less than two percentage points above the national weighted mean negative case error rate for the prior fiscal year. Any deficiencies detected in the Agency’s QC system will be included in the Agency’s State Corrective Action Plan. (4) Assessment of Corrective Action FNS will conduct a comprehensive annual assessment of the Agency’s corrective action process by compiling all information relative to the Agency’s corrective action efforts, including the Agency’s system for data analysis and evaluation. The purpose of this assessment and review is to determine if: • Identified deficiencies are analyzed in terms of causes and magnitude and are properly included in either the State or local SNAP office corrective action plan; • The Agency is implementing corrective actions according to the appropriate plan; • Target completion dates for reduction or elimination of deficiencies are being met; and • Corrective actions are effective. In addition, FNS will examine the Agency’s corrective action monitoring and evaluative efforts. The assessment of corrective action will be conducted at the State level or local SNAP office, as necessary. In addition, FNS will conduct on-site reviews of selected corrective actions as frequently as considered necessary to ensure that the Agency is implementing proposed corrective actions within the timeframes specified in the Agency or local SNAP office corrective action plans and to determine the effectiveness of the corrective action. The on-site reviews will provide the Agency