We are approaching the end of federal fiscal year 2005 QC sample. The August sample is drawn today leaving only September left to go. It will take several months for our QA staff and the Quality Assessment Review Committee to complete the process, yet our ability to effect the final FFY 2005 error rate is coming down to these final weeks. Our current 93% performance is good, and we are still a percentage point short of our 94% payment accuracy goal. Last year you delivered strong results for us in the final months. Hopefully, we will repeat that trend this year. The national payment accuracy average remains above 94%, so our quest to be Better than Average continues. Let's keep our work quality focus, and push a bit more if we can to assure these last few months further improve our accuracy rate.
On a high note, our food stamp negative error rate that measures the quality of our decisions to deny applications and close cases is still the best in the nation at 100%! This is a performance bonus category, and we are in an obviously strong position to compete for the award. Keep up that great work. An odd twist to food stamp bonuses, is that a state cannot get an award if it has a penalty for high error rates. The director received a message from the Food Stamp Program regional administrator last week advising us of this fact and urging our continued improvement of payment accuracy. This presents a bit more motivation for us to hit our target.
With seven months of completed QA review data in, we have some sterling performance to note:
Thanks for the superior work quality that really helps move us all closer to our goal.
Here's the link to see the latest office by office results: http://dpaweb.hss.state.ak.us/main/fs/fs_district_report_05.pdf