§276.3. Negligence or fraud. — Inbound Citations

(ii) FNS shall not determine negligence (as described in § 276.3 of this chapter) based on the overall payment error rate for issuances to ineligible households and overissuances to eligible households in a State or political subdivision thereof. FNS may only establish a claim under § 276.3 of this chapter for dollar losses from failure to comply, due to negligence on the part of the State agency (as defined in § 276.3 of this chapter), with specific certification requirements. Thus, FNS will not use the result of States' QC reviews to determine negligence.

(1) Whenever FNS asserts a claim against a State agency, the State agency may appeal the claim by requesting an administrative review. FNS claims that may be appealed are billings resulting from financial losses involved in the acceptance, storage, and issuance of coupons (§ 276.2), billings based on charges of negligence or fraud (§ 276.3), and disallowances of Federal funds for State agency failures to comply with the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, regulations, or the FNS-approved State Plan of Operations (§ 276.4).