Background: With the passage of Amended Substitute House Bill 119 of the 127th General Assembly, Section 5107.04 of the Revised Code was amended to provide for an increase in the Ohio Works First (OWF) payment standard on January 1, 2009, and the first day of each January thereafter by the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) that occurs in the previous year. The COLA is announced by the Social Security Administration in mid-October.
New Payment Standard: On October 16, 2012 the COLA increase of 1.7% was announced. The OWF payment standards have been updated based upon this increase. The standards for the Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) program follow OWF and will be increased accordingly.
Below are the new payment standards for OWF and RCA for January 1, 2013:
| AG Size | 01/13 |
|---|
| 1 | 273 |
| 2 | 374 |
| 3 | 458 |
| 4 | 564 |
| 5 | 661 |
| 6 | 735 |
| 7 | 822 |
| 8 | 910 |
| 9 | 1002 |
| 10 | 1092 |
| 11 | 1180 |
| 12 | 1271 |
| 13 | 1362 |
| 14 | 1449 |
| 15 | 1541 |
| +15 ADD | 114 |
Implementation: A mass change is scheduled to run in CRIS-E the weekend of November 23, 2012 to increase the OWF and RCA payment standards. Alerts will be generated and an exception report will be created for all cases which CRIS-E cannot update automatically and the eligibility worker will be required to run ED/BC for those cases to implement these changes. Each assistance group affected will also receive a notice providing their new benefit amount. A CLVB will be issued with the details of the system changes.