with the SNAP Salmon Challenge!
2009 Food Stamp Accuracy Improvement Campaign
From: Mary Riggen-Ver, Chief, Program Integrity and Analysis
We’re now officially into a brand new federal fiscal year and looking to have some fun with our very serious challenge to boost our Food Stamp accuracy rate in FFY 2009. Our statewide payment accuracy rate for FFY 2008 currently stands at 93.8%. We have several offices that are performing at 95% accuracy or better, notably Bethel, Coastal Field Office, Nome, Sitka, Gambell, Mat-Su and Central APA. However, our statewide average of 93.8% is running significantly below the national average, which is hovering at 95.4%.
Most of you are probably aware that as of October 1st the name of the federal Food Stamp Program changed to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The name of the Food Stamp program in Alaska is not changing yet. In the meantime, we think that SNAP also stands for Successfully Navigating to Awesome Performance, and are enlisting some Alaska salmon to help us do that in FFY 2009.
Our 2009 SNAP challenge is for all salmon fry to successfully make it out to sea at 95% payment accuracy or better. A salmon chart will be posted on the web each month to help us track our progress and help us identify which salmon may need additional support from the rest of the “school”. A salmon may represent an individual office, or a group of offices, depending upon the percent of benefit dollars in the quality assessment sample. There are salmon to represent: Southeast, Fairbanks, Nome, Bethel, Kenai, Frontier Building, Mat-Su, Gambell and Muldoon. All salmon will be shown swimming at 100% accuracy until later this month when the most recent four month rolling average figures are available (March – June 2008).
View the SNAP Salmon Challenge chart! (PDF)
Next year when all FFY 2009 quality control reviews are finalized:
• All salmon that met 95% payment accuracy or better for FY 2009 will be recognized.
• The most improved salmon that swam the hardest from 2008 to 2009 will be recognized.
• The salmon that consistently led the way will be recognized.
• Salmon that provided the most help to keep lagging salmon from falling behind (based on staff input) will be recognized.
Although not shown on the salmon chart, there are “support salmon” from the Director’s Office, the Field Services Support Unit, Policy and Program Development, Program Integrity & Analysis, Systems Operations and Staff Development and Training swimming along with you.
A salmon kick-off event will soon surface at your office. In the meantime, hatch some fun SNAP salmon ideas, focus on accuracy….and start swimming!