Income: Ongoing and Eligibility

At the bottom of the person profile page, in the Employment and Finances card, you will find an area to fill in employment history, and two different types of income: ongoing and eligibility. 

• • Ongoing income is income that you need to record for your own reference that reflects the income, assets, and expenses a person has for a period of time.  

  • Eligibility Month income is a section that activates when an eligibility application is generated in Casebook. This information reflects a person's income, assets, and expenses for a specific month and is used to calculated a focus child's qualifications for the EA, IV-E, or CC eligibility programs. 

Types of Income

Regardless of whether you are entering ongoing or eligibility month income, you can add 4 different categories of income.

• 1. Earned Income -- this includes all income the person earns through employment, self-employment, inkind earning, or other earnings.

  2. Unearned Income -- this includes all income the person receives. For example, if a person is receiving child support, TANF, SSI, unemployment, etc, it would be entered here.

  3. Assets -- these are all of the assets a person has, including bank accounts and motor vehicles.

  4. Expenses -- these are relevant expenses a person has, including alimony, child care, or child support.

Eligibility Month Income

Eligibility month income is added by you and referenced by CEU workers to calculate the income requirements for an eligibility application. CEU workers may navigate to the person page to gather this information.

The income information entered into the eligibility month section should reflect only the income, assets, and expenses a person had during the month the triggering event occurred. This information will be used by the CEU worker to calculate a child's standard of need income tests, which will inform the CEU worker's decision on a child's Eligibility. 

Triggering Eligibility Month Income Requirements

The eligibility income section is activated when a new eligibility application is created. Events that trigger eligibility applications are:  

• • The approval of an IA Plan - triggers EA application and eligibility income

  • Filing of a CHINS petition - triggers EA application and eligibility income 

  • An initial placement that is longer than 24 hours - triggers IV-E application and eligibility income

When an FCM performs one of the three triggering events, the FCM will receive a notification alerting them to enter eligibility month income information for everyone in a household with the focus child. This notification will appear

• • On the dashboard in the notifications menu

  • In the notification dropdown on the universal toolbar

  • In the Employment and Finances card on the household members' person pages. 

How to Enter Eligibility Month Income Information

While to workflow for entering ongoing and eligibility month income are the same, there are a couple slight differences in what you will enter. Eligibility month income is only information about a particular month and need to be verified. 

• 1. Click edit on the Employment and Finances card on the person profile page.

  2. A section for Eligibility Month income will display with a warning message. There will be an expandable menu, labeled with the related month, for each eligibility application related to the person

• 1. Expand the menu for the month you want to record income. 

• 1. Click the "add new.." slugs to add a new income record and use the dropdown menu to verify the income.

• • 1. When workers click the check box for "I verified that Maria Bartoni had zero dollars worth of EARNED Income in May 2012"  it activates the Verification dropdown. A verification needs to be selected even if the person does not have any records for the particular type of income.

• 1. Once all income information has been entered, click the big save button at the bottom of the page. You do not need to click the smaller save buttons at the bottom of each section.

Ongoing Income

The ongoing income section is available to you at all stages in the assessment or case. You can record Earned Income, Unearned Income and Assets in this section. Entering income into this section has NO effect on eligibility applications. Eligibility month income, explained in detail below, is what CEU workers will reference for the income requirement.

• 1. Click "Edit" on the Employment and Finances card.

  2. Locate the "Ongoing Income" section near the bottom of the edit screen.

• 1. Each of the three sections is an expandable section of the card. Clicking the small triangles will expand each section and display an add slug and any existing records.

• 1. You can click on the small blue arrows to display the "Add" buttons

• 1. When the Add New slug (seen above) is clicked, workers can enter a specific type of income in the inline form that opens.

• 1. When complete, click the "Save" button underneath that specific card, and then also click the Final Save button at the bottom.