There's good news to share. We're making a rare late year leap in our Food Stamp Program payment accuracy rate. Toward the end of our sample year there's so many completed cases in our quality control sample that the rate doesn't vary too much, but we had great July results. Now with two months for the QA staff to finish up we're at 93.6%, and there's a chance we can reach our 2005 campaign target goal of 94% accuracy.
DPA Work Services Performance
The QA results are nearly complete for May. We did make further progress toward our Food Stamp Program goal of 94% payment accuracy. The accuracy rate is now at 93.2%. Our statistician tells me that if we finish as strongly as we did during the final months last year, we can still reach our goal. Your daily attention to the many details that assure our ongoing work quality is appreciated. Good as we've done, there's still a way to go to for us to better the national payment accuracy average of 95.5%.
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 Thursday June 30th, Alaska will receive a performance bonus award of $205,000 from the USDA as the state with the most improved Food Stamp Program payment accuracy in the nation. This is a great accomplishment you've helped us achieve. When we started our Better than Average campaign in October 2003 we had the dubious distinction of the highest error rate in the nation. We set ambitious goals for work quality improvement, and you've reached them, earning Alaska positive recognition and financial reward. This is no small feat, for it is rare for a state to make such marked inprovement in a single year.
You many have noticed the new Food Stamp Program payment accuracy figures are posted on DPAweb. Our accuracy rate improved, and now stands closer to our goal at 93.5%. And there's a good accompanying trend of progress, our accuracy rate for the latest four completed sample months is 95%! Good signs that our campaign goal of 94% is within reach.
The Food Stamp Program has expanded the performance measures to include cash bonuses for state's with the best Negative error rate. The Negative QC sample examines the correctness of our decisions on denied food stamp applications and case closures. Positively good news thus far - 100% accuracy. Keep it up and you'll have us in the hunt for that award.
We've worked a little closer to our FFY 2005 goal of 94% Food Stamp Payment Accuracy. We now stand at 92.6% accuracy, with the sample about 40% complete. Our last three completed QA sample months (Nov - Jan) averaged better than 95% accuracy. So it appears we're trending upward. If we can sustain that performance we'll reach our goal. Thanks for your continued focus accuracy and your recognition of its importance.
With three full months of our 2005 quality control sample completed, we have some results to share with you. After a rocky start we are climbing back toward our Better than Average campaign goal of 94% Food Stamp Program payment accuracy. We now stand at 92.4%. It's good to see that number rising to overcome some large errors in October. In keeping with our campaign theme, we're still aiming to do better than the national average. If we can do that, we also avoid having to pay a past penalty for high error rates.
There's good news to share regarding our Better Than Average food stamp payment accuracy campaign. We did top our 2004 goal of 93% payment accuracy. I received a message from the FNS Regional Food Stamp Program Director today saying it's a sure thing that Alaska will be the state with the most improved payment accuracy in FFY 2004. It will be a few months until the formal annoucement is made and our award amount determined, so we'll be recognizing your acheivement and celebrating more at that time.