1. Purpose.To summarize the UI program's GPRA performance during FY 2002 and announce the FY 2003 GPRA goals and indicators.
2. References.
Unemployment Insurance Program Letter (UIPL) 32-02, "Call Memo for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 Unemployment Insurance (UI) State Quality Service Plan (SQSP)," (July 8, 2002); UIPL 33-02, "Development of an Unemployment Insurance Payment Accuracy/Integrity Measure" (July 31, 2002); UIPL 27-02, "Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) FY 2002 Unemployment Insurance (UI) Program Goals" (May 6, 2002).
3. Background.As discussed in UIPL 32-02, the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) redefined its GPRA goals for UI in FY 2002 to achieve a simple yet balanced expression of GPRA's intent to reflect the UI program's benefit payment, tax and reemployment facilitation responsibilities. The goals and performance during FY 2002 were as follows:
The first two goals build on existing UI PERFORMS Tier I measures. Because they are goals, the targets are higher than the Tier I criteria, which represent performance floors:
| RESCISSIONS | EXPIRATION DATE |
| None | January 31, 2004 |
- Make Timely Benefit Payments to Unemployed Workers.
Payment Timeliness: 91% of all intrastate first payments will be made within 14/21 days. (This measure excludes interstate, UCFE, UCX, partial and part-total weeks, and workshare payments. Tier I and Secretary's Standard criterion for intrastate first payment timeliness: 87%.)
- Actual performance for FY 2002: 88.7% were made within 14/21 days.
- Establish Tax Accounts Promptly.
Status Determinations Timeliness: 80% of new-employer status determinations will be made within 90 days of the end of the first quarter in which liability occurred. (Tier I New Status Determination criterion: 60%.)
- Actual performance for FY 2002: 81.7% were made within 90 days.
The following two GPRA goals required the development of new measures to establish the indicators:
- Improve Payment Accuracy for Unemployed Workers. Establish a baseline to improve UI payment accuracy nationwide.
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After discussions with state partners and stakeholders, we selected as a measure the amount of overpayments actually established through state Benefit Payment Control (BPC) operations as a percent of the amount the Benefit Accuracy Measurement (BAM) program estimates states can detect and establish for recovery through BPC operations. The BAM estimate is an "operational overpayment rate." The operational rate includes those overpayments that are generally agreed to contain substantive overpayment errors that the states can be reasonably expected to detect and establish for recovery. Certain categories of overpayments including failure to search for work and to be registered with the Employment Service are excluded from this rate. (UIPL 33-02 presents this definition, and the other options considered, in detail.) The selected measure also received the greatest support from the 28 states responding to UIPL 33-02 and other parties consulted. The FY 2002 baseline value is 57.9%.
- The denominator of this ratio measure is for the 12 months ending March 31, while the numerator is for the 12 months ending September 30. The six-month difference between the numerator and denominator allows for the fact that most of the overpayments BPC establishes for recovery have actually occurred much earlier. For overpayments detected using the benefit-wage crossmatch, for example, six months or more elapse between the time when overpayments occur and BPC can detect and establish them.
- Additional information: Payment integrity has many dimensions, and no single measure can capture them all. To address this inherent problem, the GPRA measure will be supplemented by a set of related measures to provide context and interpretation. This set of measures will include: the BAM Annual Report overpayment rate; the rates of error on monetary, separation, and continuing eligibility denials; a measure of an average overpayment amount; the percentage of errors for which UI agencies are responsible; the proportion of overpayments excluded from the operational overpayment rate; and the share of overpayments states have established through BPC that they recover.
- Facilitate the Reemployment of Claimants. Establish a baseline to increase the entered employment rate of claimants.
- During FY 2002, we determined that an entered employment measure was the best way to reflect how well the UI system facilitates the reemployment of UI claimants, and prepared measurement options.
The GPRA goals for the UI program are included in both the Department of Labor and the ETA Annual Performance Plans. The ETA Annual Performance Plan can be found on the ETA Website at http://www.doleta.gov/perform/.
4. FY 2003 GPRA Goals.The State Quality Service Plan (SQSP) call memo, UIPL 32-02, identified the GPRA goals as areas of federal emphases for FY 2003. The goals and targets for FY 2003 are as follows:
- Make Timely Benefit Payments to Unemployed Workers.
- Target: 91% of all intrastate first payments will be made within 14/21 days. (Same as FY 2002.)
- Establish Tax Accounts Promptly.
- Target: 80% of status determinations for new employers will be made within 90 days of the end of the first quarter in which liability occurred. (Same as FY 2002.)
- Improve Payment Accuracy/Integrity for Unemployed Workers.
- Target: Overpayment amounts established through state BPC operations will be at least 59% of the estimated dollars overpaid using the BAM "operational overpayment rate," for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2003.
- Further development during FY 2003: We will explore a different measure for FY 2004 and beyond: the percent of estimated recoverable overpayments that are actually recovered. This measure would have the same denominator as the FY 2003 indicator, but its numerator would be amounts actually recovered. If analysis indicates that this measure is superior to the current measure, after consultation with states and system stakeholders, it will be used for FY 2004.
- Facilitate the Reemployment of Claimants.
- Development during FY 2003: A measure of the entered employment rate of all UI claimants will be selected and pilot tested in several states. If the pilot test is successful, ETA will seek OMB approval for full implementation nationwide in FY 2004.
5. Tracking GPRA Performance.The Office of Workforce Security (OWS) has developed two automated GPRA Tracking Reports showing performance against the goals of timely first payments and timely status determinations, located on the OWS Website at https://ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/gpra.asp. These reports automatically compute the two GPRA indicators for every state and the national aggregate using the latest reported data.
A report similar to the "GPRA Tracking Report" sent out manually to our Regional Offices during FY 2002 will be developed to show the status of performance relative to the accuracy goal. It will also be posted to the OWS Website.
6. Action Required. State Workforce Agency Administrators are requested to:
- Distribute this advisory to appropriate staff;
- Review state performance on each goal;
- If performance is below the 2003 target, focus management attention on improvement; seek technical assistance from the Regional Office as appropriate; and
- If state performance meets or exceeds the goal, ensure that performance is sustained or improved.
7. Inquiries.Direct questions to the appropriate Regional Office.