MR #21.16: Work First Ends July 01, 2021

Illinois Department of Human Services logo

07/12/2021

Summary:

Due to an Administrative Directive, the Department of Human Services will end the Work First Pay-After-Performance as a TANF Core Activity effective July 01, 2021.
Workers should immediately stop enrolling customers in Work First.
A list of cases identified as Work-First participants will be distributed to select Family Community Resource Center's (FCRC) to end-date the Work-First activity no later than June 15, 2021.
The Responsibility and Service Plan (RSP) for the identified cases will not be updated until after the COVID-19 Emergency Declaration procedures are lifted.

Due to an Administrative Directive, the Office of Workforce Development has decided to end Work First Pay-After-Performance as a TANF Core Activity effective July 01, 2021. This Manual Release provides further instructions to the Policy Memo: Work First Ends July 01, 2021 dated 05/18/2021.

IES

A list of cases that have customers actively participating in Work First have been identified and will be distributed to select FCRCs. Workers will need to perform multiple actions in IES to complete the process of ending Work First for an individual and moving their TANF EDG to Regular Roll benefits:

Step 1: Complete and submit any outstanding A&A reports for month of June 2021.

Step 2: Update the current RSP ending the Work First activity using "Other" from the End Date Reason drop-down to prevent a partial payment from issuing for the month of June 2021. Upload the prior RSP Signature Page and run eligibility.

Step 3: Create a new RSP with Child Support and Child Care where appropriate. Upload the prior RSP Signature Page and run eligibility to place the TANF EDG back on regular roll benefits.

Step 4: Add Case Comments indicating the Work First Activity was ended per an Agency decision and a prior RSP signature page was utilized to complete the process of ending the Work First activity.

Responsibility and Service Plan (RSP)

Since current Work First providers have expressed an interest in having their contracts updated to provide Job Placement Services and due to current COVID-19 Emergency Declaration procedures, workers should not engage the customers and update the RSP. Since the signature page is required to update the RSP, workers can add the old signature page to the new version of the RSP and make a case comment. The FCRCs will need to control the list of Work First customers that had the activity end-dated and update their RSP at a later provided date.