National Unemployment Insurance Integrity Professional Development Conference

1. National Unemployment Insurance Integrity Professional Development Conference Washington, D. C. April 19 – 21, 2010 Andrew Spisak U. S. Department of Labor

2. Improper Payments Information Act (IPIA) • Under the IPIA agencies must examine the risk of erroneous payments in all programs and activities they administer. • DOL reports to OMB three improper payment rates as part of its IPIA requirements: • Annual Report (total overpayments) • Operational (recoverable overpayments) • Underpayments

3. Improper Payments Information Act (IPIA)

4. Executive Order 13520 • On Nov. 20, 2009, President Obama signed E. O. 13520 – Reducing Improper Payments, which requires: • Each agency to designate an official to be accountable for meeting targets. • The Treasury Dept. to publish improper payment information for “high priority” programs. • Agencies to place a prominently displayed link to Internet-based resources for addressing improper payments, including a link to the Treasury improper payments Web site, on their agency Web pages.

5. Executive Order 13520 • E. O. 13520 requires: • Each agency to establish, in coordination with OMB, supplemental measures and targets for high-priority programs. • OMB to establish a workgroup consisting of Federal, State, and local officials to make recommendations to the Director of OMB designed to improve the Federal Government’s measurement of access to Federal programs by the programs’ intended beneficiaries.

6. Executive Order 13520UI Supplemental Measures • According to OMB guidance, agencies with high-priority programs should develop new measures with semi-annual targets that: • Focus on higher risk areas within the high-priority program, for example components of the annual rate. • Identify root causes of error in the program or components of the program that agencies can fix through corrective actions.

7. Executive Order 13520 UI Supplemental Measures • OUI conducted an analysis of improper payment data and identified two measures that we believe meet the OMB guidelines. OMB has accepted these two supplemental measures of improper payments. • Operational Rate • ES Registration Rate

8. Executive Order 13520 UI Supplemental Measures • Almost half of all UI overpayments are caused by claimants who continue to claim benefits after they return to work or who are ineligible for benefits because they voluntarily quit their job or were discharged for cause. Work search and Employment Service registration issues are the next largest components.

9. Executive Order 13520 UI Supplemental Measures

10. UI Supplemental MeasuresOperational Rate • Justification: The Operational Rate is a component of the comprehensive Annual Report rate that includes those fraud and nonfraud overpayments that agencies are expected to identify and establish for recovery. • The two leading causes of UI overpayments -- BYE and separation issues -- comprise nearly 80 percent of the operational rate.

11. UI Supplemental MeasuresOperational Rate

12. UI Supplemental MeasuresOperational Rate

13. UI Supplemental MeasuresOperational Rate • By including these high-impact improper payments over which agencies have a degree of control, the Operational Rate meets OMB guidance for agencies to “focus on higher risk areas within the high-priority program”.

14. UI Supplemental MeasuresOperational Rate • Nationwide, the operational overpayment rate was 5.2% in Fiscal Year 2009, representing about $3.2 billion in UI benefit overpayments (State UI, UCFE, UCX).

15. UI Supplemental MeasuresES Registration • Justification: Although ES registration errors account for nearly 15 percent of total overpayments nationally ($835 million) in FY 2009, these errors are concentrated in a handful of states. • OUI has identified this cause as a controllable source of improper payments. Efforts to address this cause can be targeted in a few states that account for over two-thirds of total overpayments attributable to ES registration.

16. UI Supplemental MeasuresES Registration • DOL believes that the ES registration measure meets the OMB guideline to identify measures that reflect “root causes of error in the program or components of the program that agencies can fix through corrective actions.”

17. UI Supplemental MeasuresTargets

18. UI Supplemental MeasuresTargets • OMB requires that semi-annual targets will be set for the supplemental measures. • The semi-annual targets will be at the midpoint between the fiscal year targets (that is, 0.1 or 0.05 increments).

19. Executive Order 13520Access Measures DOL has proposed the following Access Measures: • UI Recipiency Rate • Improper Denials Rates (BAM DCA) • UI Performs Timeliness Measures • 1st Payments • Nonmonetary Determinations • Appeals Reversals

20. Web Links For Payment Integrity Data • Office of Unemployment Insurance: http://www.oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/ • U. S. Dept. of the Treasury: http://paymentaccuracy.gov

21. OUI Web SiteImproper Payments Information Act Summary

22. OUI Web SiteAnnual Report Rate Causes

23. OUI Web SiteUnemployment Insurance Integrity Initiatives • National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) • State Information Data Exchange System (SIDES) • UI Integrity Legislation • Treasury Offset Program (TOP) • Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment (REAs) • National UI Integrity Conference

24. Dept. of the Treasury Web Site

25. Dept. of the Treasury Web Site

26. Dept. of the Treasury Web Site