Ohio earned a "High Performance Bonus" from the United States Department of Agriculture for significantly improving our Food Assistance payment accuracy rate from FFY 2007 to FFY 2008. Our final FFY 2008 rate was 4.29 percent, a full 4.88 points lower than our FFY 2007 error rate of 9.17 percent, which resulted in Ohio receiving a bonus of $5,100,407.

ODJFS will use 2.1 million dollars of the bonus to assist in the development of such projects as a Web-based client application and change reporting process through E-Gateway; creation of a CRIS-E universal security profile to allow efficient access to county caseloads; enhancement to CRIS-E buy-in budgeting to assist with our Food Assistance Error Reduction Project; or system upgrades that will make it easier to track our National Voter Registration Act work. ODJFS will pass the remaining $3,000,407 of the award to the county departments of job and family services (CDJFS).

ODJFS will follow the methodology set forth in rules 5101: 9-6-05 and 5101:9-6-09 of the Administrative Code, currently used to allocate funding for the Income Maintenance and Food Assistance Employment and Training allocations, to distribute the bonus. Funding will be distributed by electronic funds transfer to the county treasurer no later than October 31, 2009. Agencies should code bonus funds received as follows:

Project Code: 910

Description: Received Outside System

Account Code: 470950

Description: Deposits - State

The CDJFS may use the SNAP bonus as local dollars to cover ceiling excess in any allocation currently distributed to the CDJFS. The SNAP bonus may be used as state/local match or for expenditures normally reported to other funding sources, as determined at the local level, by using CFIS coding currently in place.

Questions may be directed to your ODJFS fiscal supervisor or to the Bureau of County Finance and Technical Assistance at (614) 752-9194.