Approving IEFs—Categorical
Maryann Durrant (USBE):
Once you’ve gotten the IEF back from the parent, you need to approve it. IEFs are only valid once you approve them. For example, if on a review we find an IEF for a participant that you’ve been claiming at the free or reduced rate hasn’t been approved by you, we would need to take money back.
There are two ways to determine whether a participant qualifies at the free, reduced, or paid rate. Categorically or by income. This training will discuss categorical eligibility. To be categorically eligible, the participant or their family must meet certain qualifications. If anyone in the household has a case number for SNAP (supplemental nutrition assistance program), often called food stamps, FEP (Family Employment Program) or FDPIR (Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations), all participants in the family would qualify at the free rate. If a participant is enrolled in head start, is in foster care, or is homeless, part of a migrant worker family, or runaway only the participant that situation applies to would qualify at the free rate.
The first step in approving a categorically eligible IEF is to make sure that the parent has completed all of the required areas. We go through the steps for completing an IEF in a different video, but as a review, you would make sure that the parent has filled out the enrolled children, the case number, and the parent signature and date. If all of these are present, you would know that all enrolled children qualify categorically at the free rate. All children can be claimed as “free” and you would get the higher reimbursement because of that.
So you would turn the IEF over, sign and date, then mark either the categorical eligibility box or the free circle, whichever one makes the most sense to you at your facility. We do recommend that multiple review the IEFs because two sets of eyes are better than one. If you had another individual review the IEF, you could have them sign and date as well. You could even have three people checking to ensure that everything is in order. All that is required is to have one signature.
The previous example showed how you would approve the IEF if the family included a case number for one of the qualifying programs, but if you recall, we mentioned that an IEF could be approved categorically if the child is enrolled in head start, is a foster child, or is homeless, migrant, or a runaway. In these situations, you wouldn’t need to have a case number, but you’ll need to remember that the entire household wouldn’t automatically qualify at the free rate, only the child that this situation pertains to would qualify at the free rate. So if you have a family with two children coming to your center and one was enrolled in head start but the other child wasn’t, only the child enrolled in head start would automatically qualify at the free rate but the other child would need to have a case number or qualify by income to be in the free or reduced category.
In the case of a head start, foster child, or homeless/migrant/runaway situation, you would make sure that the required information is present. You would check to make sure that the enrolled children are recorded in step 1, that there is a check mark in the appropriate box and that the parent signature and date is present.
You would again, turn the IEF over, sign and date and mark “categorical eligibility” or “free” but remember that if there were multiple children on this IEF, only the child that has the check mark for head start, foster child, or homeless/migrant/runaway would qualify at the free rate, not all of the children enrolled.
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