In accordance with H.B. 33 of the 135th Ohio General Assembly, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) is continuing funding to assist local County Department of Job and Family Services (CDJFS) to help in the fight against public assistance fraud.

To receive the Fraud Prevention and Control Allocation, a CDJFS is required to submit a plan for increasing fraud prevention, early detection of fraud, and investigations on potential fraud that may be occurring in public assistance programs. ODJFS will issue $2.5 million in both SFY24 and SFY25. A CDJFS must submit a two plan to BPI_FCS@jfs.ohio.gov by August 31, 2023.

Methodology

For SFY24/25, ODJFS will allocate funds to the CDJFS agencies as outlined in current Administrative Code Rule 5101:9-6-05 "Income Maintenance" as follows: 

• Thirty per cent of the statewide allocations based on each county's population less than one hundred per cent of the federal poverty level utilizing the most recent calendar year (CY) data from the U.S. bureau of census.
• Thirty per cent of the statewide allocations based on each county's population less than two hundred per cent of the federal poverty level utilizing the most recently available CY data from the U.S. bureau of census.
• Thirty per cent of the statewide allocations based on each county's "adjusted recipients." The number of adjusted recipients is equal to the total of the categories of non-public assistance SNAP recipients, disability financial assistance (DFA) recipients and disability medical assistance (DMA) recipients, adult medicaid recipients, healthy start recipients, SCHIP recipients, TANF-related medicaid recipients, and TANF recipients.
• Five per cent of the statewide allocations based upon the county's average unemployment rate as compared statewide in the same category, utilizing the most recently available report month.
• Five per cent of the statewide allocations based upon the county's poverty rate. A county's poverty rate is identified as the percentage of the county's population living at or below the federal poverty level.
• Upon completion of the steps in paragraph (D) of this rule, the ODJFS utilizes a 0.30 per cent adjusting factor to increase or decrease the funding based upon the county difference to the statewide average per capita income.

ODJFS will allocate funding to all counties. However, to utilize and draw down funding a CDJFS must have a plan that has been approved by the Office of Fiscal and Monitoring Services (OFMS) Bureau of Program Integrity (BPI).

Please note that this allocation is separate from the Fraud Awareness Allocations that counties receive every April.

ODJFS will issue coding for the Fraud Prevention and Control Allocation and further information regarding expenditure reporting via a Bureau of County Finance and Technical Assistance (BCFTA) update.

For fiscal questions please contact your ODJFS Fiscal Supervisor or the BCFTA Helpdesk at CFIS_HELP_DESK@jfs.ohio.gov.