In accordance with Section 751.140 of House Bill 483 of the 130th General Assembly, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) is issuing funding to a limited number of competitively selected counties to encourage and support new innovations in APS programming. This funding will give County Department of Job and Family Services (CDJFS) agencies the opportunity to test new approaches and models that encourage multidisciplinary collaboration and to enhance the current system capacity to meet core APS requirements.

ODJFS will issue the APS Innovation Fund allocation as an advance to any CDJFS with a proposal that has been approved by the Office for Children and Families (OCF). There are two types of awards a CDJFS may receive:

1.APS Capacity Building Grant (up to $35,000 per application)

2.APS Innovation Grant (up to $150,000 per application)

A CDJFS may apply for, and is eligible to be competitively selected for, one or both awards under the APS Innovation Fund allocation. Information regarding the application process and guidelines can be found at:

http://www.healthtransformation.ohio.gov/CurrentInitiatives/SupportHumanServicesInnovation2.aspx

ODJFS will communicate expenditure coding to CDJFS who have been competitively selected to receive the APS Innovation Fund allocation via a County Finance Information System Alert. Funds must be reported and liquidated by December 31, 2015. Funds not fully liquidated by December 31, 2015 will return to ODJFS as part of the October - December 2015 quarterly reconciliation.

Please contact the County Finance Information System (CFIS) HelpDesk in the Bureau of County Finance and Technical Assistance for questions regarding coding.