BACKGROUNDThe Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ProgramThe Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 established the TANF program to help families progress from welfare to self-sufficiency. Under TANF, the Federal government provides States $16.6 billion in annual block grants to design and operate programs that accomplish the TANF program’s four purposes. States have broad flexibility in how they spend their TANF and MOE funds. At the Federal level, ACF’s Office of Family Assistance administers the TANF program and provides oversight for compliance with Federal requirements. Federal Requirements States may use Federal TANF funds for expenditures that are reasonably calculated to accomplish the purposes of the TANF program or for which the State was authorized to use funds under prior law (45 CFR § 263.11). TANF and MOE expenditures must be necessary, reasonable, and allocable to the performance of the TANF program and be adequately documented (45 CFR §§ 75.403(a) and (g)). States must also submit quarterly reports of TANF data and financial information to ACF using the ACF-196R (Social Security Act § 411 and 45 CFR § 265.3). States’ quarterly ACF-196R reports must be complete and accurate and filed by the due date. States must maintain records to adequately support any report (45 CFR § 265.7). States’ financial management systems must be sufficient to permit the tracing of funds to a level of expenditures adequate to establish that such funds have been used according to the Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award. The financial management system must provide accurate, current, and complete disclosure of the financial results of each Federal award or program; maintain records that identify adequately the source and application of funds for federally-funded activities; and have effective control over, and accountability for, all funds, property, and other assets (45 CFR § 75.302). New York’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program Expenditures In New York, the State agency administers the TANF program and delegates local social services districts (local districts) to operate their local program. For FY 2016, ACF awarded the State agency $2.7billion in Federal TANF funds and the State agency reported a total of $5.3 billion in TANF and MOE expenditures on its ACF-196R reports. These expenditures included $4.8 billion in total assistance payments and support expenditures for TANF-eligible families and individuals and $558 million transferred to two other ACF-funded programs—the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) programs. The State agency obtained total TANF and MOE expenditures from local districts and TANF-funded State programs and reported these amounts on its ACF-196R reports. Local districts were responsible for collecting and maintaining supporting documentation for assistance payments and support services reported as TANF and MOE expenditures and submitted monthly summary reports of these expenditures to the State agency. On a quarterly basis, the State agency used summary reports submitted by the local districts to the State agency’s claims reporting system, gathered data from several schedules in these summary reports, and used a preset formula to calculate totals for both TANF and MOE expenditures. The State agency then combined these totals with monthly or quarterly expenditure totals from TANF-funded State programs, including program administrative expenditures, and reported its total quarterly TANF and MOE expenditure amounts to ACF on the ACF-196R. OBJECTIVEOur objective was to determine whether the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (the State agency) ensured that its TANF and MOE expenditures reported to ACF met Federal requirements.
NY,
United States
