[Congressional Bills 103th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1195 Introduced in House (IH)]

103d CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1195

     To amend the Food Stamp Act of 1977 regarding quality control.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 3, 1993

 Ms. Long (for herself and Mr. Gunderson, Mr. Brown of California, Mr. 
  English of Oklahoma, Mr. Boehner, Mr. Doolittle, Mrs. Thurman, Mr. 
Ackerman, Mr. Clyburn, Mr. Hall of Ohio, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Hinchey, Mr. 
 Hobson, Mr. Hoke, Mr. Jacobs, Ms. Kaptur, Mr. LaFalce, Mrs. Maloney, 
   Mr. Mann, Mr. McCloskey, Mr. Mollohan, Mr. Oxley, Mr. Rahall, Mr. 
Richardson, Mr. Roemer, Mr. Sawyer, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Sharp, Mr. Spratt, 
Mr. Traficant, Mr. Walsh, and Mr. Wise) introduced the following bill; 
           which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
     To amend the Food Stamp Act of 1977 regarding quality control.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Food Stamp Quality Control System 
Amendments of 1993''.

SEC. 2. FOOD STAMP QUALITY CONTROL SYSTEM.

    (a) Collection and Disposition of Claims.--Section 13(a)(1) of the 
Food Stamp Act of 1977 (7 U.S.C. 2022(a)(1)) is amended in the fifth 
sentence by striking ``(after a determination on any request for a 
waiver for good cause related to the claim has been made by the 
Secretary)''.
    (b) Administrative and Judicial Review.--Section 14(a) of the Food 
Stamp Act of 1977 (7 U.S.C. 2023(a)) is amended by--
            (1) adding in the sixth sentence, immediately following 
        ``pursuant to section 16(c)'' the following: ``(including 
        determinations as to whether there is good cause for not 
        imposing some or all of the penalty)'';
            (2) adding following the sixth sentence: ``In deciding 
        whether to uphold a penalty or any portion thereof (including 
        whether there is good cause for not imposing some or all of the 
        penalty), such judges shall conduct a thorough review of the 
        issues and take into account all relevant evidence.'';
            (3) adding before the period in the sentence beginning with 
        the words ``Such judges'', the following: ``, and the 
        deliberative process privilege shall not be the basis for the 
        withholding of documents by the State agency or by the 
        Secretary''; and
            (4) striking the last sentence.
    (c) Administrative Cost Sharing and Quality Control.--Section 16(c) 
of the Food Stamp Act of 1977 (7 U.S.C. 2025(c)) is amended to read as 
follows:
    ``(c)(1) The program authorized under this Act shall include a 
system that enhances payment accuracy by establishing fiscal incentives 
that require State agencies with high error rates to share in the cost 
of payment error and provide enhanced administrative funding to State 
agencies with the lowest error rates. Under such system--
            ``(A) the Secretary shall adjust a State agency's federally 
        funded share of administrative costs pursuant to subsection 
        (a), other than the costs already shared in excess of 50 
        percent under the proviso in the first sentence of subsection 
        (a) or under subsection (g), by increasing such share of all 
        such administrative costs by one percentage point to a maximum 
        of 60 percent of all such administrative costs for each full 
        one-tenth of a percentage point by which the payment error rate 
        is less than 6 percent, except that only State agencies whose 
        rate of invalid decisions in denying eligibility is less than a 
        nationwide percentage that the Secretary determines to be 
        reasonable shall be entitled to the adjustment prescribed in 
        this subsection;
            ``(B) the Secretary shall foster management improvements by 
        State agencies pursuant to subsection (b) by requiring State 
        agencies other than those receiving adjustment under 
        subparagraph (A) to develop and implement corrective action 
        plans to reduce payment errors;
            ``(C) if a State agency's overpayment error rate for a 
        fiscal year exceeds the national average overpayment error rate 
        for the fiscal year, other than for good cause shown, the State 
        agency shall pay to the Secretary a penalty for the fiscal year 
        in an amount equal to--
                    ``(i) the product of--
                            ``(I) the value of all allotments issued by 
                        the State agency in the fiscal year; times
                            ``(II) the lesser of--
                                    ``(aa) the ratio of--
                                            ``(1) the amount by which 
                                        the State agency's overpayment 
                                        error rate for the fiscal year 
                                        exceeds the national average 
                                        overpayment error rate for the 
                                        fiscal year, to
                                            ``(2) the national average 
                                        overpayment error rate for the 
                                        fiscal year; or
                                    ``(bb) 1; times
                            ``(III) the amount by which the State 
                        agency's overpayment error rate for the fiscal 
                        year exceeds the national average overpayment 
                        error rate for the fiscal year;
        reduced by
                    ``(ii) the product of--
                            ``(I) the ratio of--
                                    ``(1) the amount by which the State 
                                agency's overpayment error rate for the 
                                fiscal year exceeds the national 
                                average overpayment error rate for the 
                                fiscal year; to
                                    ``(2) the State agency's 
                                overpayment error rate for the fiscal 
                                year; times
                            ``(II) the overpayments recovered by the 
                        State agency in the fiscal year; and
            ``(D) a State agency may, at its option, pay a penalty 
        established pursuant to subparagraph (C) in quarterly payments 
        over a period not to exceed 30 months, in amounts sufficient to 
        pay the penalty with interest by the end of such period. The 
        amount of liability shall not be affected by corrective action 
        under subparagraph (B).
    ``(2) As used in this section--
            ``(A) the term `payment error rate' means the sum of the 
        overpayment error rate and the underpayment error rate;
            ``(B) the term `overpayment error rate' means
                    ``(i) the percentage of the value of all allotments 
                issued in a fiscal year by a State agency that are 
                either--
                            ``(I) issued to households that fail to 
                        meet basic program eligibility requirements; or
                            ``(II) overissued to eligible households,
                    ``(ii) reduced by the amount by which the national 
                average underpayment error rate for the fiscal year 
                exceeds the underpayment error rate of the State agency 
                for the fiscal year. At the request of a State agency, 
                the Secretary shall apply such reduction in determining 
                the State agency's overpayment error rate for either of 
                the two following fiscal years instead of in 
                determining the State agency's overpayment error rate 
                for the fiscal year to which the reduction would 
                otherwise apply;
            ``(C) the term `underpayment error rate' means the ratio of 
        the value of allotments underissued to recipient households to 
        the total value of allotments issued in a fiscal year by a 
        State agency;
            ``(D) the term `national average overpayment error rate' 
        for a fiscal year means the ratio of--
                    ``(i) the total value of allotments issued by all 
                State agencies in the fiscal year that are either
                            ``(I) issued to households that fail to 
                        meet basic program eligibility requirements, or
                            ``(II) overissued to eligible households; 
                        to
                    ``(ii) the total value of all allotments issued by 
                all State agencies in the fiscal year.
            ``(E) the term `national average underpayment rate' for a 
        fiscal year means the ratio of--
                    ``(i) the total value of all allotments underissued 
                by all State agencies to recipient households in the 
                fiscal year; to
                    ``(ii) the total value of all allotments issued by 
                all State agencies in the fiscal year; and
            ``(F) the term `good cause' shall include, but not be 
        limited to, the following factors:
                    ``(i) uncontrollable, significant caseload 
                fluctuations that substantially disrupt food stamp 
                program administration;
                    ``(ii) natural disasters that substantially disrupt 
                food stamp program administration;
                    ``(iii) Federal or State program changes that 
                substantially disrupt food stamp program 
                administration;
                    ``(iv) strikes that substantially disrupt food 
                stamp program administration;
                    ``(v) uncontrollable client-caused errors;
                    ``(vi) demographic factors, such as literacy, 
                homelessness, unemployment, poverty and rural 
                composition of population, that contribute 
                substantially to an excessive error rate and depart 
                substantially from national averages for such factors;
                    ``(vii) state program improvements reasonably 
                designed to reduce error rates in the longer term, but 
                that uncontrollably cause short-term increases in the 
                error rate; and
                    ``(viii) other circumstances beyond the control of 
                a State agency.
            ``(3) The following errors may be measured for management 
        purposes but shall not be included in the overpayment or 
        underpayment error rate:
                    ``(A) any errors resulting from the application of 
                new regulations promulgated under this Act during the 
                first 120 days from the required implementation date 
                for such regulations;
                    ``(B) errors resulting from the use by a State 
                agency of correctly processed information concerning 
                households or individuals received from Federal 
                agencies or from actions based on policy information 
                approved or disseminated, in writing, by the Secretary; 
                and
                    ``(C) cases found by quality control reviews to 
                have involved, but later found in a fair hearing not to 
                have involved, overpayments, underpayments, or payments 
                to ineligible recipients.
    ``(4)(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), in determining 
whether a payment is an erroneous payment, the State agency and the 
Secretary shall apply all relevant provisions of the State plan 
approved under section 11.
    ``(B)(i) If a provision of a State plan approved under section 11 
is inconsistent with a provision of Federal law or regulations, and the 
Secretary has notified the State agency of the inconsistency in 
writing, the provision of Federal law or regulations shall control.
    ``(ii) Clause (i) shall not apply with respect to a payment of the 
State agency if--
            ``(I) it is necessary for the State to enact a law in order 
        to remove an inconsistency described in clause (i), the 
        Secretary has advised the State agency that the State will be 
        allowed a reasonable period in which to enact such a law, and 
        the payment was made during such period; or
            ``(II) the State agency made the payment in compliance with 
        a court order.
    ``(5) If the Secretary, directly or indirectly, receives from a 
State agency part or all of the amount of a penalty imposed under 
paragraph (1)(C) and part or all of the penalty is finally determined 
not to have been payable, the Secretary shall promptly refund to the 
State agency the amount determined not to have been payable, with 
interest which shall accrue from the date of receipt at the rate 
described in section 13(a)(1).
    ``(6) Each State error rate for purposes of this subsection shall 
be determined on the basis of a review of a single statistical sample 
of each State agency's food stamp cases for the fiscal year (without 
sub-sampling, re-reviews, or statistical regression analyses), and 
national average error rates for purposes of this subsection shall be 
derived from State error rates so determined. Said reviews shall be 
conducted by State agency personnel under the direction of the 
Secretary pursuant to regulations adopted by the Secretary, or, if a 
State agency so elects as to any particular review, shall be conducted 
by the Secretary. No penalty shall be collected under paragraph (1)(C) 
if the width of the 95 percent confidence interval of any error rate on 
which it is based exceeds 50 percent of the point estimate of said 
error rate, unless the State to which a particular error rate pertains 
agreed in writing to a sample size that precludes meeting this 
requirement. All error rates, incentive payments, and penalty claims 
for a fiscal year shall be determined by the Secretary and communicated 
to State agencies within nine months following the end of the fiscal 
year.
    ``(7) If the Secretary asserts a financial claim against a State 
agency under paragraph (1)(C), the State may seek administrative and 
judicial review of the action pursuant to section 14.''.

SEC. 3. FISCAL YEAR 1992.

    No penalty, disallowance, or other similar action shall be applied 
to or collected from any State agency administering the food stamp 
program for fiscal year 1992 under section 16(c) of the Food Stamp Act 
of 1977 (7 U.S.C. 2025(c)) or any predecessor law or regulation 
relating to penalties, disallowances, or other similar actions for 
erroneous issuances in the food stamp program.

SEC. 4. STUDY OF QUALITY CONTROL STATISTICAL SYSTEM.

    The Secretary of Agriculture and the State agencies that administer 
the food stamp program shall jointly undertake a study of measurement 
error, and of geographical and temporal uniformity of measurements, in 
the food stamp program quality control error-rate estimation system, 
and shall report the results and recommendations of such study to the 
Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives and the 
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate no 
later than one year after the date of enactment of this Act. As part of 
the study, the Secretary and the State agencies shall jointly conduct 
controlled experiments under which various reviewers review identical 
cases, with the objective of determining the degree of uniformity in 
quality control error-rate measurements and the extent to which 
different levels of investment of resources in the review process 
affect measurement error. The study report shall include 
recommendations as to what measures would best reduce measurement error 
and increase uniformity of quality control error-rate measurements at 
reasonable cost.

SEC. 5. EFFECTIVE DATE.

    The amendments made by section 2 shall be effective as of October 
1, 1992.

SEC. 6. BUDGET NEUTRALITY REQUIREMENT.

    None of the provisions of this Act shall become effective unless 
the costs are fully offset in each fiscal year through fiscal year 
1995. No agriculture price support or income support program 
administered through the Commodity Credit Corporation under the 
Agricultural Act of 1949 may be reduced to achieve such offset.

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