[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 11 (Wednesday, January 18, 1995)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3702-3703]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-1124]




[[Page 3701]]

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Part II





Department of Labor





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Employment and Training Administration



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Unemployment Insurance Program: Unemployment Insurance Program Letter 
No. 13-95; Notice

  Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 11 / Wednesday, January 18, 1995 / 
Notices    
[[Page 3702]] 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Employment and Training Administration


Unemployment Insurance Program: Unemployment Insurance Program 
Letter No. 13-95 Providing an Evaluation of a Field Test of Alternative 
Unemployment Insurance (UI) Performance Measures as Part of the 
Performance Measurement Review (PMR) Project

    This Unemployment Insurance Program Letter (UIPL) transmits to the 
States, for comment, an ``Interim Evaluation Report'' that provides the 
results of a field test of alternative UI performance measures in six 
State Employment Security Agencies (SESAs).
    The Unemployment Insurance Service (UIS), with the involvement of 
SESA and Federal UI representatives, defined alternative timeliness and 
quality measures. The intent of the measures is to promote improved 
service delivery thereby strengthening the Federal-State UI program. 
The alternative measures were successfully field tested from July 1993 
through September 1994.
    This UIPL also provides the status of other UI Federal oversight 
components and their relationship to developing a coordinated and 
integrated oversight system, and efforts to concurrently develop an 
integrated data validation system to ensure the reliability of the 
data.
    The PMR project ``Interim Evaluation Report'' was produced by the 
field test evaluation contractor, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., of 
Princeton, New Jersey. The report is an attachment to the UIPL.
    Because of the length of the report and substantial cost to 
reproduce it in this Federal Register notice, the report is available 
only upon request. Reviewers are invited to comment on the report; 
comments will be considered in developing final implementation plans.
    Copies of the ``Interim Evaluation Report'' may be obtained by 
sending written requests to the address below or by telephoning William 
Coyne or James Laham at (202) 219-5623 (this is not a toll free 
number).
    Reviewers are invited to provide their comments within 60 days of 
the date of this notice to: Mary Ann Wyrsch, Director, Unemployment 
Insurance Service, United States Department of Labor, Employment and 
Training Administration, Room S-4231 FPB, Attn: TEUMC, 200 Constitution 
Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20210.
    For Further Information Contact: William Coyne, PMR Project 
Officer, or James Laham, Unemployment Insurance Program Specialist, at 
(202) 219-5623.

    Signed at Washington, DC, this 4th day of January 1995.
Doug Ross,
Assistant Secretary of Labor.

    Date: January 5, 1995.

Directive: Unemployment Insurance Program Letter No. 13-95
To: All State Employment Security Agencies
From: Mary Ann Wyrsch, Director, Unemployment Insurance Service
Subject: Field Test Results, Plans for Implementation of 
Unemployment Insurance (UI) Performance Measurement Review (PMR) 
Project, and Status of Oversight Efforts.

    1. Purpose. To convey the results of a six-State field test of 
performance measures under the PMR Project and to provide States 
with the opportunity to comment on the interim final report.
    2. References. Federal Register Notice (FRN) No. 54 FR 2238; FRN 
No. 57 FR 126; Unemployment Insurance Program Letter (UIPL) No. 10-
89; UIPL No. 13-91; and UIPL No. 30-92.
    3. Background. The Department of Labor (DOL) initiated the PMR 
Project in 1988 to examine, evaluate and improve performance 
measurement in the Unemployment Insurance Service oversight of State 
Employment Security Agencies (SESAs). The UI Quality Appraisal (QA) 
program had not been subject to in-depth review since its inception 
in the mid 1970s, so it did not take into account the impact of 
changing technologies in the delivery of UI services to the public. 
At the same time the Department recognized a need to integrate the 
components of its Federal oversight system.
    This UIPL provides current information regarding PMR design, 
field test results, and implementation plans.
    4. PMR Design and Field Test. PMR was designed in three phases. 
Phase I consisted of the analysis of existing oversight measures to 
determine their legislative basis and to identify gaps or overlaps 
in measurement areas, the development of new or revised measures and 
the design for a field test of selected measures.
    With the involvement of State and Federal UI representatives, 
the project defined eleven timeliness measures and five quality 
measures covering benefit payments, adjudications, lower authority 
appeals, and the Combined Wage Claim (CWC) program. Some of the 
measures added program categories and reporting intervals to 
existing measures derived from the Unemployment Insurance Required 
Reports system; some of the measures looked at UI service areas 
which had not formerly been measured.
    In Phase II, six States successfully conducted a 15-month field 
test of PMR measures. The test ran from July 1993 through September 
1994. UIS provided the Field Test States--California, Illinois, 
Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin--with the PMR data 
entry applications on their existing UI system platform. UIS 
National Office designed a data base system to automate, as much as 
possible, the entry, storage, and analysis of the PMR data. The 
States developed programs to extract PMR report data from their 
mainframe-based unemployment compensation records. States also 
developed extract programs to select random samples from a universe 
of eligible cases.
     The first 3 months of the test were a pretest of system 
capabilities and State programming. Corrections were made during 
that time with the help of Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., (MPR) 
of Princeton, New Jersey. MPR contracted with the State of New 
Hampshire to assess State ability to implement the PMR design, to 
validate the data collected and to provide analysis and 
recommendations for establishing levels of performance.
    The ``Interim Evaluation Report'' dated December 5, 1994, 
contains an analysis of the field test data by MPR and is included 
as an attachment to this UIPL. The report shows that the new 
performance measures and the software developed could yield 
meaningful and statistically valid information in a cost-effective 
manner, except for the CWC quality measures. States are invited to 
review and comment on the attached ``Interim Final Report,'' as 
comments will benefit the development of final implementation plans.
    In Phase III, PMR will be implemented nationwide.
    5. PMR Implementation. After resolving comments from 
stakeholders responding to this UIPL, UIS will provide States by May 
1995, detailed implementation directions including data systems 
specifications and an implementation schedule.
    6. Status Report on UI Oversight. DOL's oversight programs have 
evolved over time. Each component represents a building block in the 
Federal UI oversight structure, beginning with Quality Appraisal 
(QA) and Workload Validation (WLV), and growing to include Cash 
Management, Benefits Quality Control (BQC) and Revenue Quality 
Control (RQC) programs. The Department recognized a need to 
integrate parts of the oversight system so that they would form a 
more coherent whole, and has convened a workgroup to examine the 
issue.
    a. Performance Enhancement Work Group (PEWG). The PEWG is a 
joint Federal/State work group composed of representatives from 
Federal National and Regional Offices, and State Agencies formed in 
conjunction with the Interstate Conference of Employment Security 
Agencies. The PEWG has been working for 13 months to revise systems 
for measuring and fostering good performance in the UI system. The 
group has developed a set of partnership principles which recognize 
mutual responsibility for the UI system. Shared ownership is made 
real by collaboratively involving State Agencies and other 
stakeholders in developing policy and procedures.
    A basic tenet of the PEWG is that all measures and standards 
developed for the UI system should be implemented in such a way as 
to foster continuous improvement, and that the comprehensive 
oversight system should recognize the respective interests of each 
partner. The PEWG has reviewed the [[Page 3703]] measures the PMR 
project field tested and the measures that RQC is currently 
implementing. In coming months the PEWG will address ways to assign 
numeric standards for performance to replace the existing system of 
Desired Levels of Achievement and Secretary's Standards.
    The PEWG has specifically addressed three areas of PMR:
    Detection Date. The PEWG has suggested using the date the issue 
is detected as the starting point for measuring and promptness of 
adjudications. The PMR Field Test measured adjudication promptness 
from the week ending date of the first week affected by the 
adjudication to the date that the determination was issued.
    Redetermination Promptness. The PEWG has suggested that UIS not 
implement a measure of redetermination promptness. The attached 
``Interim Final Report'' contains a discussion of the field test 
results of this measure.
    Combined Wage Claims Quality Measures. The PEWG has suggested 
that UIS not implement measures of Combined Wage Claims Quality. The 
attached ``Interim Final Report'' contains a discussion of the field 
test results of these measures.
    A decision on these issues as with all the other issues 
surrounding implementation of the PMR measures, will be influenced 
by comments from interested stakeholders in the system who respond 
to this UIPL.
    b. Major Changes from Quality Appraisal (QA). AQ currently 
provides an annual look at State performance. PMR results are 
available with more frequency, that is, monthly and quarterly rather 
than annually. PMR differs from QA in deriving data for performance 
measures from universe data wherever this data is available on 
States' automated systems. PMR measures also contain more reporting 
intervals and program categories. PMR universes are generally more 
comprehensive than those used for QA, including all first payments 
whether total or partial, for example.
    c. Data Validation. Data collected by DOL are used to support a 
number of important indicators that assess the nation's economic 
strength, the performance of States in the administration of the UI 
program, and to determine funding levels for State UI program 
administration. To ensure that the data reported by States adhere to 
DOL definitions and are counted properly, DOL is working toward a 
unified approach to data validation in benefits and tax program 
areas. Data validity is critical to sound UI program administration 
at the State and Federal levels.
    Workload Validation dates back to 1976. Although it has been 
modified at times to adjust to changing economic and legislative 
requirements, Workload Validation has not been reviewed in its 
entirety since its inception. Therefore, in 1992, UIS convened an 
internal work group that recommended two coordinated validation 
efforts: one effort to validate benefits data used for PMR, 
administrative financing, and certain economic data, and the other 
to review tax data used by the RQC program. Through the joint 
efforts of PMR and RQC initiatives, DOL is pursuing an integrated 
approach to data validation.
    d. Benefits Quality Control (BQC). BQC is currently being 
evaluated by a work group consisting of Federal National Office, 
Regional Office, and State UI representatives. The purpose of this 
evaluation work group is to determine the effectiveness and/or 
shortcomings of the entire BQC program to inform PEWG deliberations 
on the redesign of BQC. To that end, the work group has canvassed UI 
Federal and State personnel through the use of survey forms 
distributed at various staffing levels in these organizations. These 
results, along with available historical data, and other existing 
data, will be relied on heavily in producing BQC program findings 
and conclusions, and subsequently providing a report to the PEWG. 
This final report will reflect on all aspects of the program, both 
positives and negatives, and will include recommendations. The 
report is scheduled for delivery by the end of January 1995.
    f. Revenue Quality Control. The RQC program assesses State tax 
functions using systems reviews, acceptance samples and method 
surveys, and a series of computed measures derived from a required 
report, ETA 581. RQC is now concluding a period of voluntary 
implementation. New required reporting on the ETA 581 will become 
mandatory in the first quarter of Calendar Year 1995; the balance of 
the RQC will become mandatory effective January 1, 1996.
    7. Action Required. SESA Administrators are requested to:
    a. Provide copies of this UIPL and Attachment to appropriate 
staff for review and comment.
    b. Forward comments to the National Office, with copies to the 
appropriate Regional Office, within 30 days from the date of the 
UIPL. Address comments and inquiries to: Mr. William N. Coyne, PMR 
Project Officer, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-4516 F.P.B., Attn: 
TEUMC, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20210, FAX 
Number: 202-219-8506.
    Attachment. ``Performance Measurement Review Interim Evaluation 
Report'' (Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., December 5, 1994).

[FR Doc. 95-1124 Filed 1-17-95; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510-30-M