SR 99-25 Dated 06/99

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

INTER-DEPARTMENT COMMUNICATION

SUMMARY

This SR releases policy on treatment of census enumerator income from Census Bureau employment for the year 2000 census which will be conducted during the coming year. Some related activities have already begun.

This SR also releases technical corrections to the FAM, AAM and FSM and clarifies policy in areas of third party liability requirements, target population, resource policy related to trusts for disabled persons, treatment of unoccupied real property, and treatment of life insurance as a countable resource in the Adult Programs. These changes do not release new policy but are merely to correct or clarify existing policy.

Revised Family Assistance Manual Topics

Census Income

Census enumerator income is treated as countable earned income for all programs. Although there is a bill in congress to exclude this income for all programs, until such time as this may be passed, the income is to be counted and is subject to the usual earned income disregards.

Corrections and Clarifications

The following corrections and clarifications were made to the AAM, FAM, and FSM.

Treatment of Unoccupied Real Property as a Resource - FAM

An apparent FAM policy inconsistency related to the treatment of unoccupied real property as a resource has been corrected. All of an assistance group’s real property, other than the home, is countable and subject to disposal. The previous text implied that if property is income-producing, it is excluded, which is the case only in the Adult Programs. At the time the On-Line Manuals were developed, this inconsistency was missed.

Exception to Third Party Liability Requirements - FAM

Policy has been clarified to more accurately reflect federal regulations governing assignment of rights to third party medical assistance payments. Women who are pregnant (also including the 60 day post-partum period) cannot be terminated from medical assistance for failure or refusal to obtain third party medical coverage.

Correction to Target Population Criteria for Separate Household Status - FSM

FSM Part 229 contained a misleading statement related to target population and separate household status which gave the impression separate household status is something any target population individual may choose. To be eligible as a separate household, target population individuals must be elderly AND disabled and unable to purchase and prepare food separately from others in the household due to the disability. The misleading entry has been removed from Part 229 because the complete criteria for claiming separate household status is already given in FSM 211.01.

Clarification to Treatment of Trusts for Disabled Individuals - AAM

The AAM Chapter 400 entry for Trusts for Disabled Individuals, which describes how to treat such a trust, included an EXCEPTION concerning undue hardship. As the treatment of those trusts is in no way burdensome for the client, a statement about undue hardship is not relevant. To avoid confusion, the EXCEPTION was removed from the text.

Clarification to Treatment of Life Insurance as an Excluded Resource

AAM 411, Life Insurance, has been revised to clarify the circumstances under which life insurance is excluded as a resource in the Adult Programs. Sometimes a policy has no equity value, for example, because the individual has borrowed against it, but in the future, the equity value may be restored. The text has been rewritten to clarify that only life, group, term and fraternal policies owned by an individual which can never have an equity value and whose face values are only payable upon death of the insured can be excluded as a resource. In the FAM and FSM, this distinction is irrelevant as life insurance is an excluded resource.

Technical Correction to FAM 113

In FAM Part 113, Protective Payee, the word "check’ was replaced with "payment" to reflect the issuance of electronic benefits.

PROCEDURES

No special procedures are necessary as a result of the policy released in this SR. Since New HEIGHTS currently excludes any income coded "census enumerator", District Offices, the Child Development Bureau and NH Healthy Kids Corp. were sent a temporary systems workaround dated 4/6/99, so that New HEIGHTS would count census enumerator income. The memo instructed case technicians to enter the census enumeration earnings onto New HEIGHTS as regular earned income as opposed to "census enumerator." Entering the earnings as "regular earned income" causes the income to be treated correctly. As soon as the New HEIGHTS programming change is completed, a systems alert will inform case technicians to begin coding this income again as "census enumerator".

IMPLEMENTATION

Begin counting census enumeration income as regular earned income for all programs with the effective date of this SR. There is no implementation required for the clarification and correction changes released by this SR.

CLIENT NOTIFICATION

No client notification is planned.

DISPOSITION

This SR may be destroyed or deleted after its contents have been noted.

DISTRIBUTION

This SR will be distributed electronically according to the SR electronic distribution lists for the Family Assistance, Adult Assistance, and Food Stamp Manuals. This SR, and revised On-Line Manuals, will be available for agency staff in the On-Line Manual Library, and on the Internet, effective June 7, 1999.

This SR will be distributed in printed form according to the hard copy SR distribution lists for the FAM, AAM , and FSM. Printed manual pages reflecting policy released by this SR will be incorporated into the hard copy versions of FAM, FSM and AAM released by SR 99-25, and will be distributed to all hard copy holders of the FAM, FSM and AAM under separate cover.

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