Report 2014-118 Recommendation 4 Responses
Report 2014-118: California Department of Developmental Services: Its Process for Assessing Fees Paid by Parents of Children Living in Residential Facilities Is Woefully Inefficient and Inconsistent (Release Date: January 2015)
Recommendation #4 To: Developmental Services, Department of
To ensure that the parental fee remains appropriate for each family's current financial condition, Developmental Services should complete annual redeterminations as specified in state regulations. To this end, department management should create a mechanism to determine which accounts have not had a redetermination as required and should follow up with staff to ensure that this work is completed.
1-Year Agency Response
The Department's standard practice is continuing its increased interaction between the program manager and lead analyst and staff to ensure timelines of annual determination process is completed monthly. Department CRS programming staff have implemented a process rule for program billing to automatically set non complying parent's accounts to the maximum fee as required by regulation when parents fail to return the required financial information for assessment. Program manager now conducts monthly review of program population reports to monitor annual redetermination of qualifying accounts.
- Completion Date: January 2016
- Response Date: February 2016
California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented
Developmental Services has implemented a policy that helps ensure redeterminations are conducted in a timely manner. In addition, Developmental Services creates reports that the manager reviewed monthly to review the status of redeterminations.
6-Month Agency Response
The Department is continuing its increased interaction between the program manager and lead analyst to ensure timeliness of redetermination process monthly. Monthly redetermination statistics are a component of program's update report to be provided to the Section Chief, Branch Manager and Deputy Director beginning in August 2015.
- Estimated Completion Date: 08/31/2015
- Response Date: July 2015
California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending
60-Day Agency Response
60-Day Report Response: The CFS Program Manager is closely monitoring redetermination reports to ensure timely completion. A lead program analyst has been assigned to monitor monthly redetermination activity, and report status and any delays to the CFS Program Manager for follow-up. To increase the oversight of the timeliness and accuracy of this activity, the Department has a first draft of the reporting format for program status updates to the Branch Manager and Deputy Director. The Report will be modified as needed, based on the usefulness of the Report and issues that are identified.
- Estimated Completion Date: 07/31/2015
- Response Date: March 2015
California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending
All Recommendations in 2014-118
Agency responses received are posted verbatim.