| Effective immediately, all food stamp
claims entered into the Claims Accounting and Restitution System (CARS)
will have demand letters sent the next business day. This is a change
in the current policy. There is no longer a waiting period to see
if the Welfare Investigation Unit (WIU) will pick up the claim to investigate
for fraud. WIU investigators will still look at all Inadvertent Household
Error (IHE) claims for possible Intentional Program Violation (IPV), but
demand letters are sent the business day after a claim is entered into
CARS.
A "Y" in the administrative hearing field
no longer prevents a demand letter from being sent.
Demand letters are being sent for existing
food stamp claims that are active and have never had a demand letter sent,
with the following exceptions:
-
Claims with the following WIU actions (displayed
on the OVCS screen) will not have demand letters sent: 20, 30, 40, 41,
42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 60, 82, 85, 87, and 88. Also, claims
with both WIU action 90 AND legal action 52 will not have demand letters
sent.
-
Agency Error (AE) and IHE claims established
before January 1, 2000, will not have a demand letter sent, regardless
of the amount of the claim.
-
A demand letter will not be sent to households
with an IPV claim established before 1990 if the balance is less than $500
AND
the household is not currently receiving food stamps.
If the demand letter for any claim is returned
to the county office, follow these procedures.
-
Type OVLI followed by the DCN
and press enter. The OVLI - LETTER INQUIRY LIST screen is
displayed. This screen displays all of the demand letters which have been
sent to a specific individual. It also displays the type of letter
and the date it was sent.
NOTE: The initial run of
letters for claims that have never had a letter sent will show "CON" (converted)
as the letter type. The date sent will be correct.
-
Type "S" in front of the letter that was returned
and press PF5 OVLU. The OVLU - LETTER DETAIL UPDATE
screen appears.
-
Type the date this letter was returned to
the County Office and press enter. The message RETURNED DATE UPDATED
appears.
If the returned letter is for an IHE or AE
claim, attempt to locate the household and re-mail the letter to the household.
IPV claims must be referred to WIU if the
letters are returned and the household is not receiving any assistance
from DFS. Use the form DOI-1 Referral for Investigation. WIU
will try to locate a current address for the household and notify the county
office. Re-mail the letter to the address provided by WIU. |