State Level Administration of State Supplementary Payments (SSP)

There has been a recent change in the administration of state level SSP payments that you must be aware of as it directly impacts verification procedures owners in some states must now follow for SSI benefits.

Recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits receive a monthly benefit amount that incorporates funds from two possible sources:

1) A federal portion and/or
2) A state level portion called the State Supplementary Payment (SSP)

Note: Some recipients receive both a federal and a state portion, while others receive only one or the other.

In the past, this benefit was typically administered at the federal level, by the Social Security Administration. The federal and state level portions would both display on the EIV Income Report.

HUD was recently notified that, going forward, some states have opted to administer the SSP portion of the monthly benefit directly. This means the SSP portion of the payment will no longer be administered by the Social Security Administration (at the federal level). In these states, the state portion of the monthly benefit will no longer display on the EIV Income Report. You must research how the SSP portion of the monthly benefit will be administered in your state.

Please note the combined monthly disbursement amount will not change as part of the administration change. However, if your state has opted to administer the SSP directly, you will need to adjust your verification procedures accordingly. Specifically, you will need to pursue third party verification to verify the state level portion of the SSI income for residents. To further complicate the impact of this change, some states have not yet implemented a standard practice of issuing an award letter.

What else does this change mean? Answer- You might receive an invalid Income Discrepancy if your state is going to administer the SSP and the state level portion is more than $200 a month. If so, you will need to appropriately document the cause of the discrepancy and place this documentation in tenant file. PMCS recommends that you include in this documentation, a copy of HUD’s RHIIP Listserv #316 that discusses this administration change.