Family Income-Eligibility

ACF Administration for Children and Families	U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Administration for Children and Families
	1. Log No. ACF-IM-HS-07-03	2. Issuance Date: 3/05/2007
	3. Originating Office: Office of Head Start
	4. Key Words: Eligibility

INFORMATION MEMORANDUM [See Attachment at the bottom]

TO: Head Start and Early Head Start Grantees and Delegate Agencies

SUBJECT: Family Income-Eligibility

INFORMATION:

Attached to this Information Memorandum (IM) is an IM that was sent to all Head Start programs in December, 2004, reminding programs about the importance of following Head Start’s regulatory requirements in determining a child’s eligibility for Head Start.

The 2004 study referred to in the attached IM was also conducted in FYs 2005 and 2006 and will again be conducted this year. That is, OHS will again, in FY 2007, select 50 grantees scheduled for a monitoring review and will conduct an in-depth look of each of those programs’s compliance with Head Start eligibility requirements.

It has been our experience in conducting these annual studies that some Head Start programs are still not fully following the requirements of 45 CFR Part 1305.4. The area in which we find the most problems continues to be 1305.4(4)(e) which requires programs to maintain, for each income-eligible child, a signed statement by an employee of the Head Start program indicating what documentation was used to determine income eligibility. Please be sure you have included a signed statement in the folder of every child you have enrolled in your program whom you have determined to be income eligible. The absence of such a signed statement will result in your program being identified as non-compliant.

OHS Regional Offices have been instructed to assure that all grantees are adhering to this requirement.

Please direct any questions on this to your ACF Regional Office.

Sincerely,

Director
Office of Head Start

Attachment:
Family Income-Eligibility (ACYF-IM-HS-04-07)