This re-occurring breakout session took place during the 2024 National Tribal Technical Assistance Meeting to provide an overview of the grants management cycle for Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Native Employment Works (NEW) programs. The Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Grants Management provided guidance and resources to help navigate the fiscal roles and responsibilities associated with these program awards. This session shared updates in fiscal policy and practices, trending audit findings, and the opportunity to gauge attendees’ fiscal awareness and knowledge of these program awards.

This Office of Family Assistance webpage provides important resources, documents, and tools related to the implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provisions in the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023.

All updates can be found on this FRA Implementation webpage.

Section 304 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023 requires all states to report the data necessary to produce outcome measures for work-eligible individuals who leave Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The interim final rule on TANF Work Outcomes Measures was published on June 28, 2024. The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) hosted a webinar on July 24, 2024, where OFA presenters reviewed the new measures and provided technical guidance for preparing and submitting three new reports for the measures: Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report (quarterly), the required Secondary School Diploma or its Recognized Equivalent Attainment Rate (annually), and the Supplemental Work Outcomes Report (annually).

The authors behind Project IMPROVE’s recently published brief, Business Process Management: How to Make Time for What Really Matters, will be hosting a series of web-based events that will allow participants to learn more about how to implement business process management in their human services organizations to improve staff and participant experiences.

• 25-Minute Information Session, February 29th from 1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET: Authors provided an overview on how to implement business process management strategies such as streamlining paperwork and operations, refining program processes, leveraging technology, and more! Review the recording of this session.
• 60-minute “Open” Office Hours, March 13th from 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET: For those curious about how to get started with business process management in their human service organization were able join a group discussion with the authors and ask questions.
• Individualized Office Hours, April 2nd from 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET: The brief authors offered individualized advice on how to implement business process management in a human service organization.

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) has posted the fiscal year (FY) 2022 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) financial data tables, national and state pie charts.

• In FY 2022, combined federal TANF and state maintenance-of-effort (MOE) expenditures and transfers totaled $31.3 billion. Across the United States in FY 2022:
  •  23.0 percent of TANF and MOE funds was used for basic assistance,
  • 8.1 percent was used for work, education, and training activities; and
  • 15.5 percent was used for child care (including funds transferred to the Child Care Development Fund).
• 30 states used less than half of their TANF and MOE funds on the combination of basic assistance; work, education, and training activities; and child care.
  • 34 states spent less than 20 percent of their TANF and MOE funds on basic assistance.
  • 42 states and the District of Columbia spent less than 15 percent of their TANF and MOE funds on work, education, and training activities.
• From FY 2021 to FY 2022, the amount of funds used for basic assistance increased by $366 million and child care decreased by $58 million. The amount of funds used for work, education, and training activities increased by $211 million.

View the financial data tables, national and state pie charts for more information on how TANF and MOE funds were used in FY 2022. 

State pie charts will be published in the coming weeks.

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) hosted a webinar on January 31, 2024 to follow up the webinar on November 15, 2023 that introduced the latest revisions to instructions for TANF data report (Forms ACF-199 and ACF-209). During the webinar, OFA walked through a crosswalk that details all the changes to the instructions and their coding implications. OFA also discussed implications for states and territories that use a legacy data preparation tool (i.e., FTANF.exe). The recording of the webinar is now available; along with the PowerPoint used during this presentation.

This issue brief describes three specific program improvement strategies employed by six state, county and tribal TANF programs. The three strategies drove changes that resulted in tangible TANF program improvements across all six programs. The improvement strategies are:

1) Revisit and reimagine your working relationships with your community partners to improve collaboration and coordination;
2) actively listen to and learn from your TANF families, community members, and program staff; and
3) reorient or adapt outcome structures and monitoring elements to strengthen TANF program performance-based accountability.

The programs featured in this resource were among a group of 10 TANF programs that participated in the Office of Family Assistance’s initiative “Leveraging America’s Social and Economic Resilience TANF Learning Community” {LASER TLC).