Earned Income Disregard Tracking

Transcription

1 Earned Income Disregard Tracking Earned Income Disregard (or Disallowance), EID, is for certain HUD program types that encourages eligible participants to obtain employment without the risk of their rent immediately increasing (because of this employment). HAB s EID Tracking module allows the PHA to enter employment history in the recertification screens; the corresponding HMS or S8 Manager will produce a month by month snapshot of each Tenant s progress, and an alert if the Tenant is nearing the end of the 100% or 50% Phase. Getting Started ENCOMPASS / FAM To start an EID record for a Tenant, fill out the information on the EID tab (highlighted in yellow below) while in the recertification screens (from Encompass, Tenants, Recertification or Tenant/Applicant, FAM, Tenants): EID Start Date (Expire auto-fills) {EID Tab} Base Line (the amount of member s income prior to the qualifying EID wage) Notes: The Notes field displayed here will also be shown in the corresponding Manager (HMS or S8 Manager). HINT: in this Notes field, it might be more helpful to enter information for what s happening at the time rather than specific information about the starting job, which can be entered on the Employment History page. Displays the original starting records for all qualifying household members (one record per member) During the add mode, the Phase Status will be blank; saving will calculate the phase and fill in the applicable months. Page 1 of 15

2 Save (upper left-hand, as usual); during the add mode of the first EID record of a family member, saving will continue into the Employment History screen for the detailed employment record entry. {Employment History Screen} Once an EID record has been created for one family member, the Basic tab will flag this family, regardless of Phase status or eligibility. {Basic Tab} Page 2 of 15

3 On the income page, enter information as usual. If the EID tab has already been filled out (and at least one record of Employment History), the Income page will display the EID participating member s name in red after a record has been started and the income source has been chosen; non-eid member s names will display in black. When an earned income source is chosen, the software will prompt you to add a record to EID Employment History for a qualifying participant. If the job has already been added, respond with No, otherwise Yes (if not sure, answer Yes and if the job already exists, click on Cancel; refer to example on previous page). {Income screen} Fill out the amounts, including the Excluded amount (the software does not calculate the excluded amount nor compute the difference with the Baseline). {Income screen} Page 3 of 15

4 Examples of Different Situations Multiple EID Family Members/Multiple Jobs The EID Tab displays each participating family member with their original qualifying EID Start and End dates. {EID Tab} The Employment History will display ALL job history with a separate screen per Tenant through-out the EID period. Each record has a separate optional note field (where job specific info can be entered). Highlight a tenant s name on the EID Tab and right-click to access the Employment History for that member. Notice that Ronald McDonald has two jobs, neither having an end date. The Employed Months column on this Employment History screen reflects the total months at each separate job, which may or may not affect the qualifying EID Months, displayed above on the EID Tab. In Ronald s case, since his qualifying EID job at McDonalds is still on-going, his Walmart job (at this point in time) has no affect on his total EID months of 18 months. If his first EID qualifying job ends but the 2 nd job continues, the EID months will continue to accumulate (no break in his Phase status). {Employment History Screen} Member #1 {Employment History Screen} Member #2 Page 4 of 15

5 Income Example for Baselines and Multiple Jobs, R. McDonald family continued. Notice from the EID Tab that Member #1, Ronald, has a $0 (zero) baseline but is in Phase II (2), so his Excluded Income reflects exactly 50% of Annual Income. Member #2, Mimi, is still in Phase I (1) so qualifies for 100% excluded income minus her baseline of $1000. {EID Tab} {Income screen} Page 5 of 15

6 Job Interruption In this next example, the Employment History screen shows that Jaime lost her first and only job at the time but resumed working 3 months later. Even though she started another job in July, 2011, she s still in Phase I (1) according to the number of months of employment (10), while it s the 13 th month of her EID eligibility. Because Jaime had worked 9 months at the first job and has now started another job, which is the 10 th month of employment, she s also flagged as nearing the end of a Phase (or start of another) within the next 3 months (EID Tab). Simply enter an EID End Date on the Employment History screen for a particular job when the job has ended (or no longer qualifies for EID such as a cut in hours). The optional Employment End Reason contains a dropdown of end choices. {EID Tab} {Employment History Screen} {Manager snapshot HMS or S8} The Employment History screen s EID End Date controls the loss of qualifying EID employment per job. For example, for seasonal work, enter an EID End Date when that job either ends temporarily or no longer meets EID qualifications, and enter a NEW record for the same job when it resumes (or meets qualifications). Page 6 of 15

7 Ineligible Here a record s been created just to indicate for reference or history that Paula Port-In is Ineligible with this agency because she s completed the EID with her previous agency. In this particular example, rather than mark her as Ineligible, another option is to simply record her actual dates, even if they precede the date of admission to this PHA, which would display her as Done instead of Ineligible (if she successfully completed with the other agency and fully disclosed this information). Use the Ineligible indicator for fraud, termination, etc. {EID Tab} {Employment History Screen} {Manager snapshot HMS or S8} Page 7 of 15

8 HMS / S8 Manager EID MANAGEMENT The Managers display all EID Tenants per program (PH or S8), per each user s permissions or criteria (program/project/amp/user/etc.), with each line showing a running countdown by month, as well as Start and End date and other useful information. Once a family member s EID record is setup in the recertification screens, the Manager starts the tracking! And, while the initial record must start from the EID Tab of the Tenant s Recertification process in order for a Tenant to show up in the Manager, subsequent actions can be performed straight from the corresponding Manager by right-clicking on a Tenant s name no need to exit the Manager to add notes or adjust someone s EID information. Please Note: each Manager has its unique tabs and lookup properties. HMS Manager S8 Manager Page 8 of 15

9 Close up of HMS Manager options: Find (F2) button, used to refresh the screen Sound-ex search box, used to narrow down criteria by entering data, such as tenant name, recert staff login, notes, etc. Color code key for the three main Phases (displayed in the Phase Status column and months) Active / Inactive Tenant checkboxes (Active is default); checking both will display all EID tenants. Tenant count IR Alert: indicates that Tenant is nearing the end of a Phase within the next 3 months (displays Yes ); sort by clicking on the IR Alert column name enables the user to get all of the interim due Tenants to the top (or bottom) of the list. Please note: the IR Alert does not turn off if an interim or annual is performed during this time period! Suggestion: use the notes field on the EID Tab to indicate whether action was taken; the Baseline, Annual Income, Excluded Income, and Income After Exclusion are displayed to the far right of the Manager s EID screen as well, which is another check to make sure that an action was taken to reduce the amount of the exclusion. Interim Due color code key: Tenant names highlighted in this color indicate that the Tenant is nearing the end of a Phase (in addition to the IR Alert) Right Click on Member for more options: Buttons: Export to Excel, Select All, Deselect All Page 9 of 15

10 Close up of S8 Manager options: Find (F2) button, used to refresh the screen Sound-ex search box, used to narrow down criteria by entering data, such as tenant name, recert staff login, notes, etc. Color code key for the three main Phases (displayed in the Phase Status column and months) Active / Inactive Tenant checkboxes (Active is default); checking both will display all EID tenants. Tenant count IR Alert: indicates that Tenant is nearing the end of a Phase within the next 3 months (displays Yes ); sort by clicking on the IR Alert column name enables the user to get all of the interim due Tenants to the top (or bottom) of the list. Please note: the IR Alert does not turn off if an interim or annual is performed during this time period! Suggestion: use the notes field on the EID Tab to indicate whether action was taken; the Baseline, Annual Income, Excluded Income, and Income After Exclusion are displayed to the far right of the Manager s EID screen as well, which is another check to make sure that an action was taken to reduce the amount of the exclusion. Interim Due color code key: Tenant names highlighted in this color indicate that the Tenant is nearing the end of a Phase (in addition to the IR Alert) Buttons: Export to Excel, Select All, Deselect All and *** Right Click on Member for more options *** action: MGR Report Group reporting option that allows user to setup up menu driven grouping of projects Page 10 of 15

11 Additional Manager Screenshots {HMS Manager pictured; S8 Manager s tenant count and Active/Inactive are in different areas} Example 1 shows the Phase tracking from I to II without interruption Example 2 shows a Tenant who had a break in their employment The Phase Status column displays each Tenant s current status Both Active and Inactive will display all tenants (per projects chosen); in this example, Bobby Moved-Out (2 nd from the bottom), is displayed because of including the Inactives Jaime Collins is nearing the end of Phase I, so her name is shaded and she has a Yes in the IR Alert column; the color coding was added as a visual alert while the Yes in the IR Alert column enables grouping of all Yes Tenants by clicking on the column heading (as seen in the next screenshot) {S8 Manager} Notice how the two Tenants who are nearing the end of a Phase (both are highlighted and have Yes in the IR Alert column) are grouped together, allowing the user to highlight just those two records and export to Excel, for instance Jennifer Employed s official EID start of 8/1/2011 is in the future Page 11 of 15

12 Panoramic View (HMS Manager example; S8 Manager would be the same) Screen 1, up to Month 15 Screen 2, Month 15 thru Month 48 (leading into Project Name) Screen 3, Project Name thru Family ID (leading into HAB internal IDs) More examples on next page Page 12 of 15

13 Screen 3 Close-ups {Project Name, Member Type, Head of House Name, Recert Staff, etc} {Phase Status, Notes, Income fields} Note how the Notes field (from the EID tab) together with the Income fields helps confirm that action was taken to reduce the exclusion to 50% in the case of Ronald McDonald s (highlighted in red). Page 13 of 15

14 HAB Hints Which record comes first, the Income or the EID? When entering the EID information for the first time on a Tenant (or household member), it doesn t matter which is entered first, the Income or the EID information. New EID information entered prior to the qualifying earned income on the Income tab: when the earned income info is entered for that person (Wage, Federal Wage, HA Wage, Own Business, Military Pay), the software will recognize that this member has an active EID record and prompt the user with Do you want to Add this job to EID Employment History?. Part of the process of creating the EID record for a member also forces the user to setup the initial qualifying job. In the above example, responding with Yes to add the job to EID Employment History will confirm that there is already a record for this job and the user can cancel or review the information and save; OR, the user can answer No. If the Income is entered first followed by the EID information (setting up the EID for the first time on that particular family member, which could be HOH, Spouse, Other Adult, or Co-Head), the system will not prompt during entering this income record because no EID record exists for this family member. Once the EID record exists for a particular family member (and the member still qualifies for EID), the software will prompt each time a new earned income record is added for that member. If the income record exists prior to the EID record, and then the income amount is changed: the software will not prompt the user for modifications to an income record; only when a new earned income record is added. Page 14 of 15

15 What is the difference between the EID Expire Date on the EID tab vs. the Employment History screen? The EID Expire Date on the EID Tab is the official end date of the Tenant s 48 month period. Change this date from the calculated 48 month end only if you want to indicate when the person became ineligible, as this date will stop tracking period! The EID End Date on the Employment History screen is job specific and indicates when a job ends (or no longer qualifies such as below the required hours to keep eligibility or seasonal). This field should remain blank until the job ends. Once the 48 period is up, the software will automatically end the EID period no need to fill in an end date of the Employment History screen. Page 15 of 15