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TANF POLICY MANUAL

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federal holidays. Participants in Work Experience and Community Service activities must have absences approved by the site supervisor. Case Managers will determine excused absences on an individual basis. An absence will be considered “excused” if the participant has received permission from his or her Case Manager or site supervisor. For participants in unpaid work activities other than Work Experience or Community Service, an absence is only “excused” if approved by the Case Manager. For example, if an individual is participating in Work Experience and needed to be excused for two hours for a doctor’s appointment, then the Case Manager should key the two hour as excused for work experience.

The Participation and Tracking System (PATS) will be used to track the number of excused absences used by each recipient. The PATS system will not permit absences of more than 16 hours in a month to be counted as “excused”; and no more than 10 days 80 hours will be counted as “excused” in a 12-month period for each participant. Case managers will also track excused absences manually by means of the Excused Absence Log maintained in the case file. If total absences exceed 80 hours in the 12- month time period, only the first 80 will be considered excused.

The following criteria will be used for granting excused absences from scheduled unpaid work activities:

A. Illness B. Medical appointments of the participant or family member C. Court-appearance D. Attendance at school functions for children, i.e. parent/teacher conferences. E. Attendance at required meetings with social service agencies F. Required in the home due to illness of another family member G. Family emergency, using reasonable standards of an employer H. Bad weather, using reasonable standards of an employer I. Absent or late due to participant’s or spouse’s job interview, when the hours cannot be counted as job search J. Governor-declared “state of emergency” for the county or locality, either where the participant resides, or where assigned to participate

In order to count an excused absence as actual hours of participation, the individual must have been scheduled to participate in an allowable work activity for the period of the absences.

To control the usage of excused absence hours, a DSS system change request has been initiated for the Participation and Tracking System (PATS) that will not permit more than two days in a month to be counted; and no more than 10 days will be used in a 12-month period. Case managers will also track excused absences manually by means of the Excused Absence Log maintained in the case file.

14. Allowable Holidays Allowable holidays will be considered as participation for unpaid activities.