TEN_25-18_Attachment_I_acc.pdf

ETA Advisory File Text

I-1 Attachment I COMPUTATION OF STATE UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE UI PERFORMANCE RECOGNITION AWARDS Introduction. UI Performs the performance management system for the federal-state UI program includes core measures of performance for key aspects of state UI program administration. Awardees are determined by ranking performance in four groupings of UI Performs Core Measures 1. Benefits which includes performance in nonmonetary determinations integrity and data validation DV 2. Appeals 3. Tax and 4. Integrity. Because state size is a critical factor in assessing performance states are placed in one of three size groups small medium large . These three size groups are based on the 12-month average of UI covered employment cell c26 from the Employment and Training Administration ETA ar202 report for the fourth quarter of the preceding calendar year. Data from this report is not cumulative and is generated by quarter-ending date. This data is derived from a report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS . Size groups are calculated as follows Small covered employment under 1 million employees Medium covered employment between 1 million and 2 million employees Large covered employment greater than 2 million employees SECTION 1 Recognition Award Categories and Measures. The UI Performance Recognition Awards categories are reflected in Tables 1 through 3 below UI Benefits UI Appeals and UI Tax . Performance measures and Acceptable Levels of Performance ALP are listed in these Tables. For the purposes of determining award recipients ETA will assess these measures using an annual performance period of April 1 to March 31 I-2 Table 1 BENEFITS Measures Acceptable Level of Performance ALP Applicable ETA Report Time Lapse All First Payments in 14 21 days 87 Percent ETA 9050 First Payments Intrastate within 14 21 days 87 Percent ETA 9050 First Payments Interstate within 14 21 days 70 Percent ETA 9050 First Payments Intrastate within 35 days 93 Percent ETA 9050 First Payments Interstate within 35 days 78 Percent ETA 9050 Determinations in 21 days 80 Percent ETA 9052 Non-Monetary Quality Separation Quality 75 Percent Passing 95 Points ETA 9056 Nonseparation Quality 75 Percent Passing 95 Points ETA 9056 Program Integrity Detection of Overpayments Ratio is 50 and 95 ETA 227 Improper Payment Measure 10 Percent Benefits Accuracy Measurement Program UI Overpayment Recovery Measure 65 Percent ETA 227 Table 2 APPEALS Measures Acceptable Level of Performance ALP Applicable ETA Report Average Age of Pending Lower Authority Appeals 30 Days ETA 9055 Average Age of Pending Higher Authority Appeals1 40 Days ETA 9055 Quality of Lower Authority Appeals 80 Percent of evaluated appeals have 85 Percent of Potential Points ETA 9057 Lower Authority Appeals decisions within 30 days 60 Percent ETA 9054 Lower Authority Appeals decisions within 45 days 80 Percent ETA 9054 1 For the 5 states that do not conduct higher authority appeals DC HI MN NE and VI the overall Appeals score is based only on lower appeals measures. I-3 SECTION 2 Awards Calculation Methods. ETA will determine award recipients using the methodologies discussed below. ETA will categorize the data for the performance measures according to the guidance in Training and Employment Notice TEN No. 10-05 dated November 9 2005. Data submitted after report due dates result in a zero score for the applicable performance measure within the award calculation. Benefits Appeals and Program Integrity Excellence Award Elimination Rules. Apply rules for elimination from a category if a state a Fails to meet a measure s ALP b Fails to submit the applicable report timely c Fails to submit the applicable required reports or d Fails to submit or does not pass a DV population for any applicable section under Benefits Appeals or Integrity by the June 10th deadline of the Performance Awards year. Additional Elimination Rules for the Detection of Overpayments Measure. a Every state with a value outside the ALP criteria of 50 percent and 95 percent is eliminated for this measure and from consideration for the Benefits award. The remaining states are ranked in order of their Detection of Overpayments measure value with the highest receiving a rank score of 53 lowest being 1 . b A state having either of these reporting issues o failing to submit one or more ETA 227 reports during the three years used in computing the measure or Table 3 TAX Measures Acceptable Level of Performance ALP Applicable ETA Report New Employer Status 80 Percent ETA 581 Determinations in 90 days Tax Quality No more than 3 of the 13 Tax Performance System TPS acceptance samples fail in a year and no acceptance sample fails 3 consecutive years. Tax Performance System TPS Effective Audit Measure Factor 1 1 Percent Factor 2 2 Percent Factor 3 1 Percent Factor 4 1 Percent and Sum of Four Factors 7 ETA 202 and ETA 581 o failing to sample a sufficient number of Benefit Accuracy Measurement BAM payments without prior permission from ETA to reduce its mandated sample size. Additional Elimination Rule for the Significantly Improved Program Integrity Award. a A state failing to sample a sufficient number of BAM payments without prior permission from ETA to reduce its mandated sample size. Tax Elimination Rules. A state is eliminated or not ranked for UI Tax awards if more than three TPS functions as listed in Table 4. below fail acceptance samples in the current year or the same function fails acceptance samples for three consecutive years. For awards calculation purposes samples are considered as Fails if they are marked F fail D discarded I incomplete NS not submitted for reasons other than a universe too small to warrant an acceptance sample or U undeterminable but only for the cashiering function . A state is also eliminated if it does not submit or fails a data validation population for any section under the Tax category submitted for the June 10th deadline of the Performance Awards year. The following are the computation steps for states that are not eliminated according to the above elimination rules 1. Divide the number of tax functions passing in the current year by 13 which is the number of tax functions and multiply by 100 for a percentage e.g. 11 13 100 84.6 . An E exemption is counted as a Pass for the 13th submitted sample Tax Rates . 2. After all calculations are complete and there is a quantitative number ETA will rank states according to the ranking rules outlined below . In the examples in Table 4 below 1. State A received one E and passed 11 of the other 12 reported samples. In this example the score is computed as 12 13 100 92.3 . 2. State B was eliminated not ranked because in the current year it had one Failed one Discarded one Undeterminable and one Not-submitted sample which are all considered fails. According to the elimination rule a state is eliminated if more than three functions in the current year failed acceptance samples. 3. State C was eliminated not ranked because it failed the same tax function credits refunds for three consecutive years. It also failed report delinquency but failing two functions in the current year is not sufficient for elimination. I-4 I-5 Table 4. Tax Quality Examples No. Tax Functions Years State A State B State C Current year Y Y - 1 Y - 2 Current year Y Y - 1 Y - 2 Current year Y Y - 1 Y - 2 1. Status - New Determination P F 3 F 4 P P P P P P 2. Status - Successor Determination P P P NS P P P P P 3. Status - Inactive Determination P P P P P P P P P 4. Cashiering P P P U P P P P P 5. Report Delinquency P P P D P P F P P 6. Collections F 6 P F 3 P P P P P P 7. Field Audit P F 6 F 16 P P P P P P 8. Report Processing P P P P P P P P P 9. Debits Billing Contributory P P P P P P P P P 10. Debits Billing Reimbursing P P P F 4 P P P P P 11. Credits Refunds P P P P P P U F U 12. Benefit Charging P P P P NS P P P P 13. Tax Rates E E P P P P P P P Score for Ranking Purposes 12 13 100 92.3 NR NR LEGEND P pass F fail U undeterminable D discarded N incomplete NS not submitted E exempt NR not ranked eliminated I-6 Ranking Rules. Every state is ranked relative to all other states based on its score for each performance measure using the following steps 1. Divide states into groups by size using the state size computation to determine the top performers for each category 2. Sort state scores in each category in descending order and 3. Assign points based on state s score with the highest scores receiving 53 points to the lowest score receiving 1 point. A state s ranking depends on whether or not more than one state has the same performance result for a measure. Ranking with no ties. Table 5 depicts an example of ranking states when there are no ties. Table 5. Nonmonetary Separation Quality Ranking Order State Pct. Points A 98.2 53 B 97.9 52 C 97.3 51 D 96.9 50 Ranking with ties. States having the same percentage are assigned the same point value and the states with next percentage level are assigned the point levels to which they would be assigned if there was no tie as shown in Table 6. In the Table 6 example three states have the same percentage and all will have the same rank of 52. The state with the next lower percentage will have the point rank value it would have been assigned if there was no tie. In this case State E is assigned 49 points instead of 51. Table 6. Nonmonetary Separation Quality Ranking Order State Pct. Points A 100 53 B 96.5 52 C 96.5 52 D 96.5 52 E 96.3 49 I-7 SECTION 3 Integrity Awards Calculation Methods. ETA will determine award recipients using the following methodologies 1 Program Integrity Excellence Award. The Program Integrity Excellence Award will recognize states that have demonstrated top performance in their program integrity operations. The UI program currently has three measures to evaluate a state s program integrity performance o Improper Payment IP Rate the sum of the overpayment rate and underpayment rate including all root causes of improper payments o Overpayment Detection Rate the percent of detectable recoverable overpayments estimated by the Benefit Accuracy Measurement survey that were established for recovery through regular UI program operations and o Overpayment Recovery Rate the ratio of the amount of overpayments recovered to the amount of overpayments established expressed as a percentage. To identify top-performers in this award category ETA will calculate each state s composite score which represents an unweighted average of the above three performance measures. The Program Integrity Excellence awardees are determined by o Grouping states by size small medium and large o Eliminating states not meeting the annual acceptable criteria for individual performance measures o Calculating the unweighted average state score for the three integrity measures discussed above and o Ranking states by the highest composite score to identify the three top-performers in each size category. 2 Significantly Improved Program Integrity Award. The Significantly Improved Program Integrity Award will recognize states that have made significant improvement in reducing their Improper Payment IP Rate even if the state may not yet be meeting the IP target rate. The goal is to encourage states to focus specifically on the IP rate and continue to implement strategies that directly impact the reduction of the IP rate. The Significantly Improved Program Integrity awardees are determined by o Grouping states by size small medium and large I-8 o Calculating the difference between the most current three years of data and the prior three years performance on a rolling basis for the state s IP rate to obtain an improvement score o Requiring at least a three percentage point decrease in the IP rate and below a n IP rate threshold for states to qualify for this award. Each year ETA will determine the IP rate threshold to qualify for this award . For FYs 2019 and 2020 the IP rate threshold for this award is set at 20 percent. For future years the IP rate threshold will be communicated through the annual advisory issued by ETA to provide additional planning guidance f or the Fiscal Year State Quality Service Plan and o Ranking states by the highest improvement scores to identify the top state meeting these criteria in each size category.