b. Assessing Compliance When the State Conducts More Frequent Verifications of Compliance With the Community Engagement Requirement

To implement section 1902(xx)(a)(1)(B)(ii) of the Act, at § 435.556(a)(2)(ii), we specify that, if a State elects to verify compliance more frequently than at a beneficiary's renewal, the State must require a beneficiary who is an applicable individual to demonstrate community engagement during the period between the most recent verification of community engagement and the date the next verification is due, consistent with § 435.557(d). As such, States must evaluate whether an applicable individual demonstrated or is deemed to have demonstrated community engagement for the number of months specified under § 435.556(a)(2), during the period between the date of the beneficiary's last verification of community engagement and the date the next scheduled verification of community engagement is due. The next scheduled verification of community engagement may be either the next more frequent verification of compliance with community engagement that occurs during the eligibility period or the verification that occurs during the individual's next renewal. In the context of a State that elects more frequent verifications, the review period is the time between each verification of community engagement, including the verification that occurs as part of the regular renewal.

As an illustrative example, consider a State that elects to verify community engagement more frequently than at regularly scheduled renewals and does so in the third month of a 6-month eligibility period. The State requires an applicable individual to demonstrate community engagement for 1 month at each verification of community engagement. Prior to assessing compliance, the State must first confirm the beneficiary is still an applicable individual and is not a specified excluded individual, as defined at § 435.554. If the beneficiary remains an applicable individual, then, to conduct a verification of community engagement in the third month of eligibility, the State will check information available, including information from data sources, to determine whether the applicable individual demonstrated community engagement, including by meeting an exception under § 435.553 or, if applicable, § 435.555, for at least 1 month since the last verification of community engagement. In this specific scenario, the review period would consist of the first, second, and third months of the eligibility period, and the applicable individual could meet the requirement by demonstrating community engagement (including by being deemed as demonstrating community engagement) in any one of these 3 months. If the State is unable to verify the applicable individual's demonstration of community engagement, then the State would follow the noncompliance procedures described in section II.J. of this IFC and § 435.558. If the State is able to verify the applicable individual's demonstration of community engagement, the individual's eligibility period continues. Then, at renewal, the State will again verify whether the individual is a specified excluded individual and, if not, verify whether the applicable individual demonstrated 1 month of community engagement between the fourth month of the eligibility period and the end of the eligibility period.

States that verify community engagement more frequently than at each renewal will need to consider the timing of the additional verifications, the frequency of renewals for applicable individuals, and the time it takes the State to process renewals for a cohort. Doing so will help minimize concurrent verifications that create additional administrative burden for the State and individual, which could occur when conducting a more frequent verification overlaps with the time period the individual's renewal is in progress. For example, if a State conducts the more frequent verification of community engagement in month 3 of a 6-month eligibility period, it is possible the State is still processing the verification, including following applicable noncompliance procedures, into month 4 of an individual's eligibility period, ( printed page 33391) while at the same time the State's system is initiating the individual's renewal that must be completed by the end of the 6-month eligibility period.

Additionally, we remind States of the requirement at § 435.916(d) to promptly redetermine eligibility if they receive information about a change in a beneficiary's circumstances that may affect eligibility. States that elect to conduct more frequent verifications of community engagement compliance may receive information that may affect other factors of eligibility, such as changes in income, and the State must take prompt action to redetermine eligibility based on such information when it is received.