We now have 5 of 12 months of payment accuracy data available (October through February) and are pleased to report that our salmon are navigating even more successfully than in our last update.
Our statewide payment accuracy has increased from 91.0% to 93.9%. We still have 4 salmon exceeding the 95% target (Southeast, Bethel, Kenai and Muldoon), although there is some friendly jostling amongst the school.
Fairbanks, Bethel, Mat-Su, Gambell and Muldoon have done a remarkable job of improving their position and deftly navigating through the challenging environment. Southeast continues to lead the way at 100%. Our 93.88% accuracy rate is now higher than the 92.75% we had at this same time last year, and moves us up in the national ranking to about 42nd place. Our negative case accuracy rate of 93.98% also remains better than the 92.68% at the same time last year.
Although we are reporting on payment accuracy through February, our ability to impact our Food Stamp Program payment accuracy is now down to just 2 months, August and September, as the July quality control sample has just been pulled. The final push is on for our salmon to successfully navigate to awesome performance in the 2009 Food Stamp Accuracy Improvement Campaign. Our 95% statewide accuracy target is just around the bend, an increase of 1.12% will get us there, and our salmon have already been demonstrating that they can achieve awesome performance.
Although the quote below pertains to swimming, you can see that it easily applies to our work, and our commitment to assisting those in need:
“It's been told that swimming is a wimp sport, but I don't see it. We don't get timeouts, in the middle of a race we can't stop and catch our breath, we can't roll on our stomachs and lie there, and we can't ask for a substitution.” ~Author Unknown
2009 Food Stamp Accuracy Improvement Campaign
Mary Riggen-Ver, Chief, Program Integrity and Analysis