data validation changes summary

A Summary of Data Validation Changes in Response to Revisions to the ETA 227 Report

Overview: The Revisions to the 227 report released in February 2012 added approximately 100 cells to the 227 report. These changes were made to (a) capture agency employee benefit fraud overpayments established, allowing the old Internal Security report (ETA 9000), to be eliminated; (b) allow separate reporting of overpayments occurring in the Extended Benefits (EB) program; (c) allow separate reporting of overpayments established using the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) and recovered via offset against Federal Income Tax refunds (the Treasury Offset or TOP program); (d) for consistency with other government integrity reporting, report UI overpayments that exceeded $5,000 made to a single individual in his current claim series (High Dollar Overpayments.)

Validating these changes, and also to beginning the validation of the accuracy reporting of the mode by which overpayments were detected (Section B of the 227 report) entailed changes to DV Populations 12, 13, and 14 and the creation of a new population 15. These changes are outlined below.

Documentation. The key documents detailing the changes in DV will be incorporated in the ETA Handbook 361, Benefits or the ETA Handbook 411, DV Operations Guide.

1. DV Record Layouts show the new elements and changes to existing elements made to accommodate the changes to the DV record discussed below. See accompanying document, “record_layout_227.” Changes to existing elements are in red text; new elements are highlighted in yellow. This new information will be incorporated into the DV Operations Guide.

2. DV Subpopulation Specification. The addition of new data elements to DV population records needed to validate the new report cells results in the creation of new DV subpopulations, which are the building blocks of the reported amounts. This new array of subpopulations will be incorporated in the DV Benefits Handbook. See the attached spreadsheet, “Population Specs 227 Changes 121812.” Changes to existing subpopulations are in red text; new subpopulations are highlighted in yellow.

Outline of Changes by Population:

1. Population 12. This population validates Section A of the 227 report, Overpayments Established by Cause .

   1. Changes to the DV Record. The Population 12 record was expanded from 11 fields to 15 with the addition of five new elements and the removal of one element (which was transferred to the new Population 15)

      1. EB Amount (Field 10). This element is needed to validate the separate reporting of EB overpayments established. EB records are now identified by the addition of an EB code in the Program Type field (Field 4)

         1. This is a new data element to DV; it has been added to Module 3 of the DV Handbook, which has its definition and where the state identifies its location on its management information system to guide programmers in building the extract file and validators in investigating samples during data element validation.

      2. UI Accumulated Amount(Field 11) . This element is needed to validate UI High Dollar reporting.

         1. This is a new data element to DV; it has been added to Module 3 of the DV Handbook, which has its definition and where the state identifies its location on its management information system to guide programmers in building the extract file and validators in investigating samples during data element validation.

      3. Federal Accumulated Amount (Field 12). This element is needed to validate Federal High Dollar reporting.

         1. This is a new data element to DV; it has been added to Module 3 of the DV Handbook, which has its definition and where the state identifies its location on its management information system to guide programmers in building the extract file and validators in investigating samples during data element validation.

      4. EB Accumulated Amount (Field 13). This element is needed to validate EB High Dollar reporting.

         1. This is a new data element to DV; it has been added to Module 3 of the DV Handbook, which has its definition and where the state identifies its location on its management information system to guide programmers in building the extract file and validators in investigating samples during data element validation.

      5. Date of Original Monetary (Field 14). This element is needed to validate High Dollar reporting by identifying the claim series of overpayments established.

         1. This is not a new data element; it is already used in DV Population 3 and is already included in the Module 3 of the DV handbook.

2. Population 13. This population validates section C of the ETA 227 report, Recovery/ Reconciliation.

   1. Changes to the DV Record. The DV extract record was expanded from 10 to 11 fields by the addition of a new data element.

      1. EB Reconciliation Amount (Field 10). This element is needed to validate the separate reporting of EB overpayments recovered, waived, written off, added, or subtracted.

         1. This is a new data element to DV; it has been added to Module 3 of the DV Handbook, which has its definition and where the state identifies its location on its management information system to guide programmers in building the extract file and validators in investigating samples during data element validation.

3. Population 14. This population validates Section E of the 227 report, Aging of Benefit Overpayments, as well as Overpayments Removed (Section C of the report).

   1. Changes to the DV Record. The DV extract record remains the same in size, as one new element was added and another (which had not been used for validation) was removed.

      1. EB Balance at End of Quarter (Field 10). This element is needed to validate EB overpayments by age and overpayments due to be removed for reporting purposes at the end of the quarter.

         1. This is a new data element to DV; it has been added to Module 3 of the DV Handbook, which has its definition and where the state identifies its location on its management information system to guide programmers in building the extract file and validators in investigating samples during data element validation.

      2. Outstanding Overpayment (Previously Field 6). This element was removed because it had previously made optional for validation purposes.

4. Population 15. This population validates Section B of the 227 report, Overpayments Established by Method (of detection.) This population was added as part of these changes.

   1. Changes to the DV Record. This is an entirely new record. It contains nine elements, the minimum number needed to validate the report cells in this section. (Two elements in this population record--as with all records--are not needed for validation: a sequential observation number assigned to each record, and a “user” field provided for the convenience of the state validation team.)

      1. Five of the elements were already in Module 3: Social Security number, Unique ID, Type of Overpayment, Detection Method (moved from the old Population 12 record), and Date Established.

      2. Two elements are new:

         1. Overpayment Amount Established. This element is either the UI Amount, or Federal Amount, or EB Amount; all components are used for Population 12. For this population, the program type distinction is not pertinent.

            1. As noted above, the EB amount component is new; the UI and Federal amounts had already been required for the old Population 12.

         2. Established by Investigation. The element is needed to validate whether amounts investigated resulted in the establishment of an overpayment or not.