Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Child Care Subsidy Administration
Wisconsin Shares Handbook
Financial eligibility must be verified during the initial eligibility determination process and at each annual renewal. If a person is added to an ongoing case, all financial information related to that individual must be verified.
Employment
At application and renewal, each adult in the Assistance Group (AG) must verify earned income by providing documentation of any earned income received in the past 30 calendar days.
Acceptable Sources of Employment Verification
Dated pay stubs or pay statements for the immediately preceding 30 days. The pay stubs must include the employer and employee name, rate of pay, and number of hours worked.
Pay stubs showing year-to-date (YTD) can be used to calculate missing pay stubs. For income that fluctuates, more than 30 calendar days of pay stubs may be used.
For more information about calculating missing pay stubs, see Process Help Section 16.4.3.
If pay stubs from the past 30 calendar days are not representative of prospective income (see 6.4) or the parent has less than 30 calendar days of pay stubs due to new employment, the local agency must request additional verification to budget income prospectively. If additional verification is requested, but the employer refuses to provide it, the local agency may accept the submitted pay stubs and use the parent’s verbal statement of expected future hours and wages to prospectively budget income.
If the individual is classified as exempt or salaried under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the employer might not include the hours worked on the pay stubs. This is acceptable verification; the agency worker must not request further verification and no documentation of hours is required.
For caretaker parents of children in out-of-home care whose eligibility is based on their biological or adoptive parents’ income at the time they were removed from the home (see 9.2), the caretakers’ employment verification does not need to contain wages or salary information for the purpose of verifying participation in an approved activity. All other requirements, such as employer and employee name, hours worked, etc. for each type of verification listed must be met.
A completed Employer Verification of Earnings form (EVF-E) (F-10146) with the employer’s signature, number of hours of work per week, company name, and rate of pay.
An email or letter from the employer bearing the employer’s legible name, contact information and signature and includes the employee’s name, rate of pay, and hours of work.
Equifax verification received directly from Equifax or through the Federal Data Services Hub (FDSH) wage match (so long as the parent confirms the data is correct).
As a last resort, collateral contact with the employer. The agency worker must document the phone conversation in case comments including the date, time, and individual’s contact information.
| Example: Grant is applying for Wisconsin Shares on December 12. He started a new job on December 4 and only has one (1) pay stub to show his income. Because he started during a pay period, the pay stub also does not reflect the typical number of hours he will be working. The employer states that the information will be available in The Work Number/Equifax and refuses to return the EVF-E. The agency worker scans the one (1) pay stub into the Electronic Case File (ECF) and uses Grant’s stated income and ongoing hours to enter his income. The worker must not request additional verification later unless Grant’s wages become questionable. |
Agency workers are not required to enter the Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) on the CWW Employment page for Wisconsin Shares.
If any form of employment verification appears questionable, the agency worker must document this in case comments (see 12.1) and request a second form of verification (see 7.6).
| Note: Local agencies may ask for pay stubs for the entire preceding 30 days when employment is not new and there is an expectation that paychecks would have been issued. The EVF-E is valid verification of employment and income, but if it is questionable whether the parent is completing the form instead of the employer, the local agency must follow guidance in Section 7.6. |
| Process: Agency workers must update CWW to reflect changes in income by running and confirming eligibility, with dates if necessary, to ensure the income updates for the correct month. The eligibility determination must be confirmed for CSAW to use the new income in determining copayments and copayment periods. |
Self-Employment: See Section 7.9.1.
Unearned Income
Unearned income that is included in the Wisconsin Shares budget (see 6.2) for all AG members must be verified.
Types of unearned income verification include but are not limited to:
Unemployment Compensation award letter (unless the income is auto populated in CWW by the UI data exchange)
Divorce documents showing family support, child support, maintenance, or financial settlement
Documentation of court-awarded settlement
Social Security award letter
Veteran’s Administration award letter
Financial Aid award letter
Tax records showing unearned income such as net rental income, royalties, capital gains, etc.
Bank statements showing dividends, interests on savings or bonds, income from estates and trusts, etc.
Worker’s compensation approval letter
KIDS records showing child support received by the parent
Biological or Adoptive Parent Income
The agency worker must attempt to obtain the biological or adoptive parent income and AG size at the time the child was removed from the home. This information is typically available from the local Child Protective Services (CPS) agency. The agency worker must enter a case comment (see 12.1) that includes the following:
Name, title, and telephone number or email address of the individual at the CPS agency with whom the agency worker had contact
Date and time of the conversation or email response
Biological or adoptive parents’ income and AG size (if available)
See Section 9.2 for the process to enter this income in CWW.
7.9.1 Self-Employment Income Verification
7.9.2 Ongoing Financial Verification
This section last updated 10/1/2023