California Department of Social Services - State Hearings Division
Notes from the Training Bureau - April 16, 2003

Facts

The county issued the claimant a notice of action in May 2002 demanding repayment of a food stamp overissuance that it alleges occurred due to unreported income for several months between August 1997 and April 2001. The county presented evidence that it determined by computation in May 2002 that the overissuance occurred. The
overissuance for purposes of this hearing is treated as being caused by inadvertent household error.

Law

The county shall take action on inadvertent and administrative error claims for which less than three years have elapsed between the month the overissuance occurred and the month the county determined by computation that an overissuance occurred, irrespective of the date the claim determination was completed. (§63-801.111)

The county shall calculate the amount of the FS overissuance which occurred during the six years preceding the date the overissuance was discovered. The county shall not include in its calculation any amount of the overissuance which occurred in a month more than six years prior to the date the overissuance was discovered. (§63-801.311(b), as revised effective August 10, 2001)

The CDSS interpretation of the three-year time period discussed in §63-801.111 is as follows:

"The three-year time frame does not begin with the date of discovery, the date the case is referred to investigations, or the date the investigative staff uses the information on IEVS and other verifications to calculate the OI. The three-year time frame begins with the date of the occurrence of the OI." [Manual of Policies and Procedures (MPP) 63-801.11; ACIN I-03-02].

MPP §63-801.311(b) instructs the county to calculate the claim for this six-year period. The county would be operating within the three-year time frame as required by MPP §63-801.11 as long as one month of the overissuance occurs within three years of establishing the claim. Therefore it does not matter that part of an overissuance occurred more than three years prior to the establishment of the claim as long as a portion of the overissuance occurred within the three-year time frame. (All-County Information Notice (ACIN) No. I-52-02, July 22, 2002, Question 1)

Analysis

A portion of the overissuance occurred in 2001, which is within three years of May 2002 when the overissuance was determined by calculation. Since at least one month of the overissuance occurred within three years of the date the overissuance was determined by calculation, the county is permitted to recoup any overissuance that occurred within six years prior to the date the overissuance was discovered.