SR 23-35 Dated 10/23 |
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES - Bureau of family assistance (bfa)
INTER-DEPARTMENT COMMUNICATION
FROM THE OFFICE OF: |
Administrator IV of Bureau of Family Assistance (BFA) Debra E. Sorli |
BFA SIGNATURE DATE: |
October 17, 2023 |
AT (OFFICE): |
Bureau of Family Assistance |
TO: |
All BFA Staff |
SUBJECT: |
SNAP Recertification Interview Waived for Certain Elderly and Disabled Households |
EFFECTIVE DATE: |
August 1, 2023 |
SUMMARY
This Supervisory Release (SR) releases an update to the recertification process for households where all of the adult members in the SNAP household are elderly or disabled and they have no earned income. This change will impact about 12,000 households, and those who meet the criteria will be changed from in-person, phone or video to paper or online for recertifications which started with August recertifications.
POLICY
Waiver 00005762 was granted by FNS for a period of 2 years, effective May 1, 2023 through April 30, 2025. This waiver allows us to remove the requirement to conduct an interview at recertification for households containing adults with no earned income and all of the adult members are elderly or disabled. These households may also contain children.
NEW HEIGHTS PROCEDURES
New HEIGHTS has modified the recertification settings for these households to either an online recertification or a mail-in recertification (paper).
New HEIGHTS Implementation for Recertification
New HEIGHTS ran a conversion on July 3, 2023 for open SNAP households that meet the above criteria who currently have a recertification method of ‘in-person’, ‘phone’, or ‘video’. The households new recertification method has been changed to ‘paper’ or ‘online’.
New HEIGHTS Implementation for Ongoing Cases
New HEIGHTS will be releasing a System Alert at the end of October 2023 regarding updating ‘confirmation’ to automatically set the recertification method for households meeting the above criteria. Until then HEIGHTS will do one additional conversion for any new case that opens on or after July 5, 2023.
POLICY MANUAL REVISIONS
Food Stamp Manual Topics
Part 101 INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Section 105.01 Eligibility Determinations
Section 127.01 Interview Sites
PART 133 LENGTH OF ELIGIBILITY
Section 161.03 Required Verification for Recertification
Section 161.05 Processing Recertifications
IMPLEMENTATION
We will continue to conduct interviews (in-person, phone, or video) for any household in this category that requests an interview, or the Family Service Specialist has determined an interview is required to address issues or questions regarding the recertification application.
For these households, when a paper recertification is received, and the elderly or disabled adult is now reporting earned income, a face-to-face interview will be needed. As they no longer meet the criteria for the waiver and would be required to have an interview.
CLIENT NOTIFICATION
No special client notification is planned or needed.
TRAINING
No special training is planned or needed.
DISPOSITION
This SR may be destroyed or deleted after its contents have been noted and the revised manual topics released by this SR have been posted to the Online Manuals.
DISTRIBUTION
This SR will be distributed according to the electronic distribution list for BFA policy releases. This SR, and revised Online Manuals, will be available for agency staff in the Online Manual Library, and for public access on the Internet at https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/sr_htm/sr.htm, effective November 1, 2023.
BFA:rs