Administrative Services Section

Imperial County

Department of Social Services

2995 South Fourth Street

Suite 105

El Centro, CA 92243

Ph: (760) 337-6800

FAX: (760) 337-5716

Administrative Services Section

The Administrative Services section, staffed by 14 employees, conducts appeals and provides eligibility induction training to new eligibility technicians, refresher program training to line staff and supplies the eligibility section with program expertise and support. During induction training sessions, the section size regularly increases by the addition of two groups of 14 trainees each. The section is represented by appeals staff in administrative hearings involving client disputed eligibility and benefit determinations.

Staff Development Unit

The Staff Development Unit provides induction and refresher training for eligibility line staff and supervisors. Under the supervision of a senior staff services analyst, analysts present induction training to groups of up to 15 new eligibility staff in all assistance programs and ISAWS computer system. The core curriculum consists of CalWORKs, Food Stamps, Medi-Cal, CMSP, county policies and procedures and computer training. At the completion of the 3-month classroom training, new employees, under the guidance of their assigned training instructors, apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills to the processing of actual cases assigned to their caseloads. After approximately three months of supervised caseload processing, new workers are assigned to an eligibility intake or ongoing unit. The Staff Development Unit also provides existing line staff with training in regulation and policy changes in compliance with federal and state mandates. Refresher training is conducted frequently to ensure accurate case processing and benefit issuance.

Appeals Unit

The appeals unit consists of staff services analysts who review fair hearing requests, evaluate and develop county position statements in support of the department’s actions and represent the county in state/county administrative hearings. The correctness of the county’s action/inaction is evaluated in accordance with state and federal regulations.

The fair hearing representatives attempt to resolve the disputed issues prior to the scheduled hearings. If the county action was not in compliance with policy and procedures, the representative will review the findings with the claimant and a conditional withdrawal of the hearing request is obtained and corrective action taken. If the county action is found to be correct, the claimant is given the opportunity to withdraw from the hearing. When the claimant disagrees with the representative’s findings and chooses to pursue the hearing, a statement of position is prepared and presented before an administrative law judge who will review the evidence and testimony presented and render his/her decision within 30 days from the scheduled hearing.

The hearing unit ensures that aid paid pending the hearing when required, is issued and compliance with hearing decisions is acted upon timely.

Text Box: The Staff Development Unit strives to provide the agency’s overall training needs and to establish an environment conducive to learning that will permit eligibility staff to become self-sufficient in the performance of their duties and to meet the needs of the public, staff and the department. The Appeals Unit’s purpose is to guarantee applicants and recipients of public assistance the right to a fair and impartial hearing, to resolve eligibility disputes between claimants and the county in accordance with federal and state law.

Strategic Planning

Staff Development

Goal #1: Help meet the department’s need for new eligibility staff. This will be done by providing simultaneous and back-to-back classroom and case management induction trainings. This will more quickly fill the many Eligibility Technician vacancies where new Eligibility Technicians will enter the floor every three months instead of every six months. There will be dedicated staff for classroom training and dedicated staff for case management training.

Goal #2: Help eligibility staff decrease the departmental error rate, provide better customer service to the public, help decrease the number of hearing requests, and increase employee morale which will then decrease the employee turnaround rate by:

· Decreasing the error rate for induction staff. While Staff Development Unit staff becomes more specialized they will refine their training skills and increase the quality of training which will then decrease the trainee error rates.

· Developing Subject Matter Specialists (SME) that will lead the department towards obtaining a higher quality of caseload processing which in turn will satisfy State quality control requirements.

· Cross training staff development staff to increase their program knowledge.

· Conduct case reviews to help identify training needs and issues needing to be addressed to increase the quality of work done by eligibility staff.

· Utilizing the new imaging system (or other automation) to provide updated training materials to all staff accessible from their work station.

Appeals

Goal #1: Increase the communication between the hearing representatives, the clients and eligibility/IHSS staff which will increase the number of hearing withdrawals. This will decrease the number of appeals that go all the way to hearing. Consensus will be reached more easily and clients will be more satisfied with the services provided.

Goal #2: Decrease the turnaround time of compliance actions to hearing decisions. This will be accomplished by increasing the communication with those responsible for the compliance actions and stress the importance of timely resolutions.

Goal #3: Track the issues addressed in hearing requests to then evaluate in what manner the unit can assist the department in addressing trends. This will decrease the number of future requests on the same issues.

Goal #4: Cross train appeals staff to increase their program knowledge. This will add value to their processing of hearing requests by allowing them to address issues which affect directly or indirectly the client’s hearing request. This will also add value to the unit as staff will be able to support each other easier when the workload increases.

Goal #5: Advocate for video conferencing capabilities to the hearing process. This will decrease the hearing processing time as hearings can be heard more frequently by the State ALJs. There would be better communication with ALJs for follow-ups after the hearings and they would be allowed to spend more time to write decisions so these would be completed sooner.