Content of Error Rate Reports

(a) Baseline Submission Report—At a minimum, States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico shall submit an initial error rate report to the Department, as required in § 98.100, which includes the following information on errors and resulting improper payments occurring in the administration of CCDF grant funds, including Federal Discretionary Funds (which includes any funds transferred from the TANF Block Grant), Mandatory and Matching Funds and State Matching and Maintenance-of-Effort (MOE Funds):

(1) Percentage of cases with an error (regardless of whether such error resulted in an over or under payment), expressed as the total number of cases in the sample with an error compared to the total number of cases in the sample;

(2) Percentage of cases with an improper payment (both over and under payments), expressed as the total number of cases in the sample with an improper payment compared to the total number of cases in the sample;

(3) Percentage of improper payments (both over and under payments), expressed as the total dollar amount of improper payments in the sample compared to the total dollar amount of payments made in the sample;

(4) Average amount of improper payments (gross over and under payments, divided by the total number of cases in the sample that had an improper payment (both over and under payments));

(5) Estimated annual amount of improper payments (which is a projection of the results from the sample to the universe of cases statewide during the 12-month review period) calculated by multiplying the percentage of improper payments by the total dollar amount of child care payments that the State, the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico paid during the 12-month review period;

(6) For each category of data listed above, targets for errors and improper payments in the next reporting cycle;

(7) Summary of methodology used to arrive at estimate, including fieldwork preparation, sample generation, record review and error rate computation processes;

(8) Discussion of the causes of improper payments identified and actions that will be taken to correct those causes in order to reduce the error rates;

(9) Description of the information systems and other infrastructure that assist the State, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in identifying and reducing improper payments, or if the State, the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico does not have these tools, a description of actions that will be taken to acquire the necessary information systems and other infrastructure; and

(10) Such other information as specified by the Secretary.

(b) Standard Report—At a minimum, the State, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico shall submit an error rate report to the Department, as required in § 98.100, made subsequent to the baseline submission report as set forth in § 98.102(a) which includes the following information on errors and resulting improper payments occurring in the administration of CCDF grant funds, including Federal Discretionary Funds (which includes any funds transferred from the TANF Block Grant), Mandatory and Matching Funds and State Matching and Maintenance-of-Effort (MOE Funds):

(1) All the information reported in the baseline submission, as set forth in § 98.102(a), updated for the current cycle;

(2) For each category of data listed in § 98.102(a)(1) through (5), States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico must include data and targets from the prior cycle in addition to data from the current cycle and targets for the next cycle;

(3) Description of whether the State, the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico met error rate targets set in the prior cycle and, if not, an explanation of why not;

(4) Discussion of the causes of improper payments identified in the prior cycle and actions that were taken to correct those causes, in addition to a discussion on the causes of improper payments identified in the current cycle and actions that will be taken to correct those causes in order to reduce the error rates; and

(5) Such other information as specified by the Secretary.

(c) Any Lead Agency with an improper payment rate that exceeds a threshold established by the Secretary must submit to the Assistant Secretary for approval a comprehensive corrective action plan, as well as subsequent reports describing progress in implementing the plan.

(1) The corrective action plan must be submitted within 60 days of the deadline for submitting the Lead Agency's standard error rate report required by paragraph (b) of this section.

(2) The corrective action plan must include the following:

(i) Identification of a senior accountable official;

(vi) Targets for future improper payment rates.

(3) Subsequent progress reports including updated corrective action plans must be submitted as requested by the Assistant Secretary until the Lead Agency's improper payment rate no longer exceeds the threshold.

(4) Failure to carry out actions as described in the approved corrective action plan or to fulfill requirements in this paragraph (c) will be grounds for a penalty or sanction under § 98.92.