Emergency Assistance

1
Emergency Assistance

• Becky Craig, DWD Finance
• Todays topics
• General information about EA
• Reconciliations how and why
• Access information for the Emergency Assistance
  Tracking System (EATS)

2
Emergency Assistance

• Program funded with TANF (temporary assistance
  for needy families) 6,000,000 annually.
• For immediate needs for clients facing an
  emergency.
• Emergency due to homelessness, impending
  homelessness, energy crisis, fire, flood, or
  natural disaster.

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Emergency Assistance

• Not linked to receipt of other public assistance.
• Not for temporary shelter unless due to fire,
  flood, or natural disaster.
• All caretaker relatives in the household need to
  be listed in the assistance group can only
  receive one EA within 12 month period.

4
Emergency Assistance Tracking

• EA payments are tracked in the Emergency
  Assistance Tracking System (EATS).
• Program staff check EATS to determine if the
  caretaker relative has received an EA within last
  12 months.
• Eligibility requirement necessitates completeness
  of EATS entries.

5
Operations Memo

• Will be issued within a week ?
• Operations memo 07-22 (different number than
  initial presentation)
• Explains required fields, reconciliation
  requirements, timeframes, etc.

6
Reconciliations

• Agencies should reconcile EATS entries to check
  register or general ledger payments to ensure all
  EA payments are listed in EATS.
• Payments should then reconcile to CORe
  expenditures.
• Monthly reconciliations to ensure timeliness of
  EATS entries.

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Reconciliations why?

• Ensure all EA payments are listed in EATS to
  prevent multiple payments in 12 month period.
• Detect irregular or fraudulent payments.
• Verify amount being charged to CORe is accurate.

8
Reconciliations why?

• Eliminates other tracking mechanisms such as
  county spreadsheets with additional fields in
  EATS.
• Ensures all EA payments are recorded in EATS so
  any county can check the system for prior EA
  payments within the 12 month period.

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Reconciliations

• For 30 month period ending June 30, 2006, CORe
  expenditures reported by agencies were 1 million
  higher than EATS.
• If payments are being entered into EATS timely,
  reconciliations should require little time to
  complete.

10
EATS upgrades to assist reconciliation process

• Fields added to EATS for reconciliation
• Payee name (EATS only has client name, but EA
  payments are commonly issued to landlords).
• Check date and number.
• Check amount.
• Payee address is optional.
• Totals added to reports.

11
EATS upgrades

• Once required fields are entered by staff
  (usually program staff), the agency has five days
  to confirm or the data is deleted through a batch
  process.
• Previously entries were deleted nightly if not
  confirmed in EATS.
• Check date, number, amount, and payee name are
  not required for confirmation, but should be
  added as soon as possible to facilitate the
  reconciliation process (required within 10 days).

12
EATS upgrades

• EATS upgrades have not been put into production,
  but are expected to be within two weeks from
  issuance of the operations memo.
• Agencies encouraged to provide feedback to DWD.
• DWD will assess these new directives over the
  next year to determine if further refinement is
  required.

13
EATS reports (new slide 5/4/07)

• Reports in EATS can be viewed by contract agency
  or by geographical area.
• Counties in consortiums can view their own data
  for reconciliations by using geographical area
  instead of contract agency as the selection
  criteria when running detailed grant reports
  shown on next slide.

14
Selection criteria in EATS (new slide)
15
EATS

• Finance staff can obtain access to EATS for
  reconciliation purposes.
• Create a DWD/Wisconsin Logon ID account.
• https//www.dwd.state.wi.us/accountmanagement/

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EATS website address

• Go to the EATS website below and click on request
  access to fill out the request form.
• Same website to access the system.
• https//www.dwd.state.wi.us/dwseats/

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EATS website
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Access request

• Request worker access will be able to print
  reports and add entries if necessary.
• Print out form and pass on to your agencys
  security officer, who will sign and forward to
  DWS security.
• Access granted within three days.

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EATS - reconciliations

• Questions, concerns, or comments?
• 800-845-7603 or 608-266-8144
• Thank you!