Unemployment Insurance Division SFY 2007
The mission of the Unemployment Insurance Division is to provide short term economic relief to eligible workers from a fund financed by employers.
Goals and Objectives
- Goal #1: Meet or exceed federal performance standard for first
payment promptness.
- 87% of 1st payments will be issued within 21 days after the compensable week begins
- Response: Exceeded goal, performance was 93.71% (20,531 of 21,886 1st pays were timely).
- Goal #2: Meet or exceed Government Performance Results Act.
- 90.3% of all intrastate first payments for full weeks will be issued within 21 days.
- Response: Exceeded goal, performance was 94.5% (20,226 of 21,434 intrastate first pays were timely).
- Goal #3: Meet or exceed federal performance standard for non-monetary
determinations.
- 80% of separation and non-separation determinations will be issued within 21 days of the detection date
- Response: Exceeded goal, performance for separations was 81.86% (8,744 of 10,691). For non-separations, performance was 93.37% (4,205 of 4,488).
- Goal #4: Meet or exceed federal performance standards for non-monetary
determination quality.
- 75% of separation and non-separation determinations must achieve a quality score of greater than 80 points.
- Response: Didn’t meet goal. Performance was 71.5% for separations and 73.9% for non-separations.
- Goal #5: Maintain a quality workplace by investing in staff to
increase job capability and include staff in continual program improvement.
- Completion of online adjudication training by 30 Bureau staff through National Judicial College by end of calendar year 2008.
- Response: On schedule to meet goal.
- Goal #6: Improve training techniques and skills of in-house trainers.
- Completion of coursework that will offer training expertise and opportunity by end of calendar year 2008.
- Response: Three in-house trainers have completed training offered by Langvin & Associates.
- Goal #7: Continue to advise customers, via personal contact and
advertising, of the Internet application for both filing unemployment
insurance claims and bi-weekly filings for payment.
- Increase customer usage of the Internet to 40% for both claims filing and bi-weekly filing by end of calendar year 2008.
- Response: On schedule to meet goal. As of June 30, 2007, 40.49% of claim filings and 37.45% of continued claim filings were by Internet.
- Goal #8: Continue to provide Rapid Response activities to communities
and businesses experiencing large layoffs/business closures.
- Provide timely and critical information to customers about unemployment insurance.
- Response: Ongoing as needed.
- Goal #9: Provide high levels of customer service to all customers
of the Bureau.
- Receive positive feedback from claimants and employers in excess of 80% on customer satisfaction surveys taken by managers via telephone.
- Response: Claims center managers report positive results but no specific numbers available.
- Goal #1: Exceed federal Tax Performance Standards (TPS) for quality,
timeliness, and completeness for unemployment insurance tax functions
(status determinations, cashiering, report delinquency, collections,
field audit, report processing, debits/billings, credits/refunds, and
tax rates) as determined by acceptance samples reviewed.
- No more than 3 tax functions may fail the TPS review in a given year.
- No single tax function may fail the TPS review more than 3 consecutive years.
- Response: Montana passed both categories. The TPS criteria is pass/fail.
- Goal #2: Exceed performance standards set by the Contributions
Bureau and/or the federal Government Performance Results Act (GPRA).
- 82.8% of new employer status determinations are made within 90 days of date becoming subject.
- Response: Exceeded goal with 89.4% performance.
- 95% of employer reports are secured within 90 days of date due.
- Response: Exceeded goal with 99.1% performance.
- 95% of monies received are deposited within 3 days of receipt as evidenced by a sampling of receipts.
- Response: 100% of funded deposited with three days. Exceeded goal
- 2% of contributory employers are audited each year.
- Response: Exceeded goal – 2.2% of contributory employers were audited.
- Accounts receivable, as a percent of total tax due, is less than 2% (average).
- Response: Exceeded goal, accounts receivable are 1.5%.
- Goal #3: Provide stewardship of the UI Trust Fund by correctly
assigning contribution rates for the proper assessment and collection
of employer taxes.
- All contribution rates are assigned properly based on an annual sampling and verification of computer generated rate notices.
- Response: A sampling was done to assure that the UIT system is properly assigning UI contribution rates. Additional procedures are being implemented with annual 2008 rate assignments to further validate accuracy of contribution rates.
- Implement procedures and take steps to identify employers who engage in SUTA dumping (to avoid paying the proper amount of UI contributions), and bring them into compliance with UI law
- Response: Additional screening procedures along with an automated “potential predecessor list” are now in place to identify potential SUTA dumpers at the time employers register. A SUTA dumping workbook was developed for use in building a SUTA dumping case file. Training was conducted on using the SUTA Dumping Detection Software system, which has been used to identify potential SUTA dumping and previously undetected predecessor/successor relationships.
- Goal #4: Utilize innovate technology to improve efficiency and
customer service.
- Implement Internet employer registration by 9/30/2007.
- Response: The Internet employer registration project is in user testing stage. Implementation is expected to occur no later than November 2007.
- Market and increase usage of the Internet wage reporting system by 10% each year for the next two calendar years.
- Response: Our Internet wage reporting system, “WOW” was modified this year to allow employers to upload employee wages (from spreadsheet) and to account for taxable wages reported for an employee to another state. We have marketed WOW through Assistance to Business Clinics as well as in quarterly report inserts mailed to employers. From June 2006 to June 2007 (based on first quarter filings for each of those years), the number of employers filing reports on WOW increased by over 35%, with over a 40% increase in employers making electronic payment.
- Provide up-to-date forms and information on the UI web site.
- Response: Commonly used UI tax forms and information are reviewed and updated annually on the UI web site.
- Provide additional employer account look-up, update and/or payment features by 12/31/2007.
- Response: Completion of this goal is postponed until 12/31/2008.
- Goal #1: Create, enhance, and utilize innovative technology to
improve efficiency and customer service within the Division.
- Assist in the development of the Internet registration project that allows employers to register a new business on-line for unemployment insurance purposes, and view/update account information for existing businesses. Complete the requirements and development of the project by June 30, 2007, and move to production by December 31, 2007.
- Response: The move to production is anticipated to occur in November 2007.
- Construct an automated process that validates UI data submitted to USDOL to ensure the integrity of the data, and that corrects programming errors that result in incorrect data submissions. Complete the UI Tax verification by December 31, 2006, and complete the UI Benefits verification by June 30, 2007.
- Response: Tax verification completed on schedule. Benefits verification completed September 28, 2007. The correct programming code wasn’t available from USDOL until August 2007.
- Install National Directory of New Hire software, and perform a weekly cross-match to detect people who are both working and drawing benefits. By January 2007, finalize and begin sending electronic version of the ETA 9047 report.
- Response: Completed ahead of schedule. First electronic 9047 report submitted November 2006.
- Enhance existing systems to upgrade workflow, reporting, and documentation in order to detect and correct benefit overpayments. Identify specific enhancements by October 2006, and move to production by December 31, 2007.
- Response: May complete task before December 31, 2007. Last two BPC reports are in final testing.
- By February 2007, offer direct deposit capability to claimants for unemployment insurance benefits.
- Response: Direct deposit began in April 2007.
- Develop and implement enhancements to Imaging software to increase accuracy and efficiency by June 30, 2007.
- Response: This task was completed on August 15, 2007, included edit checking of all six data entry field in the scanning function.
- Goal #2: Audit UI benefit claims and appeals functions for accuracy,
timeliness, quality, and in accordance with federal standards.
- Conduct weekly audits on unemployment insurance claims that have been paid or denied to ensure accuracy in the claims processing. A minimum of 360 audits of paid claims and a minimum of 450 audits of denied claims will be completed in calendar year 2007.
- Response: Will meet goal, on schedule to complete 360 audits of paid claims and 452 denied claims.
- Conduct quarterly and bi-annual claims and appeals reviews in accordance with federal performance standards.
- Response: All reviews completed timely. The Hearings quality score is 91.3%. Average age of pending appeals is 15 days (one-half the national average).
- Goal #3: Ensure detection and collection of benefit overpayments.
- Conduct a minimum of 1,000 quarterly wage audits to compare wages reported by employers to wages reported by claimants to detect potential benefit overpayments.
- Response: Meeting goal. BPC has mailed approximately 1500 audits each quarter. Approximately 75% of the audits are returned by employers or approximately 1,119 audits returned each quarter.
- By June 30, 2007, meet or exceed federal overpayment detection standard of 59.5% of the estimated detectable and recoverable overpayments.
- Response: Didn’t meet goal, however, detection performance increased from 32.5% to 47.9%.
- Increase benefit overpayment collections by 3% in SFY2007.
- Response: Collections increased by 14% in SFY 2007.
- Reduce established benefit overpayments by at least 3% in SFY2007.
- Response: Overpayments established increased by 8% in SFY 2007.
- Goal #4: Ensure continuity of business operations during disasters,
power-outages, weather, or other business disruptions.
- Enhance the Division disaster plan and business continuity plan by December 31, 2007 and participate in a rehearsal of the plan.
- Response: Rehearsal of plan has not been scheduled.
- Develop employee teleworking policy and plan by December 31, 2006. Implement pilot project by March 31, 2007. Implement Division wide by June 30, 2007.
- Response: Completed on schedule.
- Implement pilot project by March 31, 2007. Implement Division wide by June 30, 2007.
- Response: Pilot project and Division wide plans not yet implemented.
- Goal #5: Protect the confidentiality of claimant and employer
data obtained and utilized by the Unemployment Insurance Division.
- Continue to provide information security and PC security training to all Divisional employees on an annual basis.
- Response: Training is ongoing.
- Enhance UI systems to prevent, deter, and detect identity theft using risk assessment and enhanced automated systems by October 31, 2007.
- Response: Among the enhancements is encryption of lap top hard drives used by field reps. Field reps are complying with State standards concerning storage of lap tops & data storage devises.
- Continue to identify and implement workstation security measures to protect documentation containing sensitive data on an on-going basis.
- Response: In addition to prior bullet, staff reminded to lock work stations & place sensitive documents in storage when leaving work area.
- Eliminate unnecessary display of Social Security Numbers by March 2007.
- Response: Implementation to be completed by October 31, 2007.
- Enhance Imaging software to display claimant ID number instead of SSN by June 30, 2007.
- Response: Work is completed, but implementation into production environment must be accomplished with SSN display goal in October 2007.
Unemployment Insurance Division Website: http://uid.dli.mt.gov/
