State and Local Agencies

Appendix F5

Round 2
DTA Staff HIP Interview Guide

DTA Staff HIP Interview Guide

Round 2: Early Operations

The Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) is supporting the Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP) by:

• Dedicating key members of the SNAP and EBT staff to support HIP. These staff will dedicate a percentage of their time to HIP.

• Hiring a full-time team to support HIP.

HIP staff is located at either the central DTA office in Boston or in Hampden County. The purpose of Round 2 interviews with State SNAP, EBT and HIP staff is to document the early stages of HIP operations. The interviews will take place approximately 2-3 months after all HIP participants have begun earning incentives.

Key staff and their primary HIP responsibilities include¹:

Position	Location	Primary Responsibility	FTE
Executive Lead (Assistant Commissioner for Policy, Program and External Relations)	DTA Central Office - Boston	Oversight of HIP and HIP staff and ensuring HIP goals and strategic objectives are met	0.25
Pilot Director	DTA Central Office - Boston	HIP planning, implementation, and oversight	1.00
Pilot Assistant Director	Hampden County	Supports the Pilot Director providing project management and HIP evaluation support	1.00
HIP EBT Contractor Liaison	DTA Central Office - Boston	Works with ACS (EBT vendor) providing oversight for EBT system modification and testing and HIP operations	1.00
HIP EBT Officer (Deputy Director for Financial Program Management)	DTA Central Office - Boston	Communicates with stakeholders concerning EBT program management and procedures. Ensures accurate accounting of HIP benefit issuance.	0.25

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 85 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, Office of Research and Analysis, 3101 Park Center Drive, Room 1014, Alexandria, VA 22302 ATTN: PRA (0584-xxxx). Do not return the completed form to this address.

Position	Location	Primary Responsibility	FTE
Data and Management Analyst	DTA Central Office - Boston	Supports HIP data analysis and evaluation	1.00
HIP Evaluator Liaison (DTA Director of Policy Research)	DTA Central Office - Boston	Ensures HIP data and research standards and priorities are met	0.25
Federal Grants Analyst	DTA Central Office - Boston	Tracks and reports spending in grant account	0.25
Trainers	Hampden County	Developing, assessing and implementing structured training and orientation sessions for DTA staff, HIP participants, retailers and community partners	2.00

In addition to staff directly assigned to HIP, Management is also involved in HIP as follows:

DTA Management

• SNAP Director

• SNAP Assistant Director

• Deputy Chief of Staff

• Director of Program Assessment

• Budget Director

• Assistant Budget Director

Hampden County Management Team

• Regional Director for Western Massachusetts

Please Note: The following members of the Hampden County Management Team will be interviewed using the Local Office Interview guides:

• Transitional Assistance Office Director – Springfield State

• Transitional Assistance Office Assistant Director – Springfield State

• Transitional Assistance Office Director – Springfield Liberty

• Transitional Assistance Office Assistant Director – Springfield Liberty

• Transitional Assistance Office Director – Holyoke

• Transitional Assistance Office Assistant Director – Holyoke

Interviews will be scheduled at least two weeks in advance. Interviews are anticipated to take place at DTA facilities

Interviews will include the questions starting on the following page. Additional, follow-up questions are anticipated, to clarify or expand responses.

GENERAL INFORMATION

1. Date and Time of Interview

2. Location of Interview

3. Name(s) of Respondent(s)

4. Have your job description and/or HIP responsibilities changed since the last interview? If no, skip to question 6.

5. New Job Description and/or Responsibilities

HIP GRANT ACCOUNTING AND REPORTING

6. Are you involved in accounting or reporting for HIP? If not, please skip to question 7.

   1. If your role or activities have changed since the prior interview, please describe.

   2. In addition to yourself, who else is involved in accounting for and reporting HIP operations resources and costs?

   3. What are the major challenges in tracking and accounting for funds and how have these challenges been addressed?

HIP MANAGEMENT AND COORDINATION

7. Do you have a role in managing or coordinating activities between HIP team members or stakeholders? If no, please skip to question 8.

   1. If your role in managing or coordinating HIP activities has changed since the previous interview, please describe.

   2. With which HIP team members do you primarily interact in management and coordinating HIP activities and how frequently does this interaction occur?

   3. What issues, if any, have you encountered in managing and coordinating HIP activities and how have these issues been resolved?

   4. Do you have any suggestions to improve HIP management and coordination between team members and/or stakeholders?

HIP RETAILER RELATIONS

8. Since the prior interview, have you been involved in the recruitment of HIP retailers or other retailer management and support activities? If not, please skip to question 9.

   1. Please describe your role in retailer recruitment, management, and support.

   2. Are you still recruiting retailers or accepting retailer requests to participate?

   3. Have you received any inquiries about HIP from non-participating retailers since HIP operations started?

   4. Have any retailers dropped out since HIP efforts started? If so why?

   5. What were the biggest challenges in recruiting and supporting retailers and how were these challenges addressed?

   6. In retrospect, what changes would you make to improve the recruitment and support process?

HIP TRAINING

9. Since the previous interview have you been involved in training? If not, skip to question 11.

   1. Please describe your role in training.

   2. With which stakeholders (DTA Central Office, Hampden County DTA, retailers, SNAP participants, others) do you interact in providing training or training materials?

   3. In addition to yourself, who else is involved in training or in preparing training materials?

   4. What issues, if any, have been encountered during training to date and how have they been resolved?

10. Do you plan on making any changes to training materials or processes as a result of early operations?

    1. What led you to make these changes?

    2. What else could be done to improve training processes?

    3. Do you plan to provide any follow-up training or materials to stakeholders? If so, please describe and provide materials if available.

HIP EVALUATION

11. Are you involved in the HIP evaluation? If no, skip to question 12.

    1. Please describe your role in the HIP evaluation, including the evaluation activities in which you are involved (data collection, data analysis, other).

    2. In addition to yourself, who else is involved in these evaluation activities?

    3. What issues, if any, have you encountered in the HIP evaluation during early operations and how have these issues been resolved?

    4. Do you have any suggestions to improve the evaluation?

ISSUES/LESSONS LEARNED

12. Looking back, is there anything you would have changed about the implementation process?

13. Other than previously discussed, what issues, if any, have you encountered during early operations?

    1. How were these issues resolved?

    2. What impact did they have on HIP operations or the HIP evaluation?

14. What lessons have you learned from your experiences to date?

15. Has HIP improved SNAP overall for HIP participants?

1 Staffing breakdown based on the Massachusetts DTA HIP Grant Application, March 2010 and Evaluation Meeting November 2, 2010.