MFIP and FSS Employment Sanctions

When you are sanctioned, all or part of your MFIP or FSS is taken away. Your employment counselor can sanction you if you don’t do something you are supposed to. Like not following your employment plan (EP), not turning in papers they ask for, missing meetings, or not going to school if you are under 18. You can also get sanctioned if you don’t go to your MFIP orientation when you start getting MFIP.

When you get an employment sanction, the cash portion of your MFIP or FSS is cut by 5%. If you stay in sanction for 6 months in a row, you lose all of your cash benefits at the beginning of the 7th  month. If that happens, your worker switches your food benefits to SNAP.

Your child support worker can also sanction you if you are not cooperating. Your sanction starts at 25%, and your Medical Assistance (MA) and child care assistance could close.

For more information or help with a sanction, call Legal Aid at 1-(877) 696-6529.

You get a Notice of Intent to Sanction (NOITS) from your job counselor. This means they are warning you that you might be sanctioned. The NOITS tells you what you need to do to avoid a sanction. If you don’t do these things within 10 days, your job counselor tells the county to sanction you.

Then the county sends you a notice called a Notice of Adverse Action. This tells you the date your sanction starts and how much money they are taking away.

If you qualify for FSS, the county can’t send the Notice of Adverse Action unless your job counselor has a current letter from a medical or mental health professional saying that you are able to follow your plan. The job counselor has to try to meet with you face to face before the county can send the Notice of Adverse Action. If you can’t meet, the job counselor or someone chosen by your job counselor has to try to visit you at home at least once. 

If you do the things that your job counselor wants you to do before the end of the month, you should get your normal MFIP on the first of the next month. If you do the things your job counselor wants you to do after the sanction has started, your MFIP should go back to normal on the first of the next month.

If you are in a 2-parent household and both parents are in sanction, the grant won’t go back to normal until both parents have done what the job counselor asks.

The NOITS should tell you what the problem is and how to fix it before you are sanctioned. You should have at least 10 days. If the NOITS is not clear about what you have to do or doesn’t give you 10 days to fix things, appeal right away and call Legal Aid. Appeal instructions should be attached to the NOITS. See our fact sheet Benefits Appeals to DHS.

You have the right to meet with your job counselor before you are sanctioned. This is called a conciliation conference. Send something in writing to your job counselor asking for a conciliation conference.

If your job counselor doesn’t get back to you, call Legal Aid. Call 1-(877) 696-6529 to find your office.

Your deadline to appeal does not change while you are waiting for a conciliation conference. You can try to fix things at the conciliation conference, but you should get your appeal in too.

You can fill out a form and submit your appeal online.  

There are instructions also if you want to read those. Read the form carefully, fill it out completely and click "Submit" on the bottom right. It is a good idea to print a copy for yourself.

If you can't do the activities on your plan because there is something going on in your life which makes it impossible, tell your job counselor, appeal, and call Legal Aid. There are many reasons why you may not be able to follow a regular employment plan. Your job counselor can work around these.

Some of these reasons are:

• you or a household member is sick, injured, or disabled
• you or a household member is a victim of family violence
• you have court-ordered activities you have to do
• you are constantly going to your child’s school because of your child’s health or behavior
• you have a learning disability which makes it hard to find or keep a job
• you are homeless, living in a shelter, have had a utility shut off, have a shut off notice, or are being evicted.
• There are also common-sense reasons, called "good cause." These are things like you lost your childcare or transportation or you had a family emergency.

For more details see our fact sheet Family Stabilization Services (FSS).

If you are already sanctioned but had good cause for not doing what your job counselor wanted, talk to your counselor about how to prove your good cause. You should get your full MFIP all the way back to the first month in which your good cause existed. If the county won’t pay this, call Legal Aid.

If your job counselor doesn't agree that you have a good reason for not doing all the things in your Employment Plan, call Legal Aid.

When you get to your 7th month of sanction in a row, these things happen:

• Your MFIP case closes.
• You have to contact your job counselor and figure out how to make things right.
• Your case stays closed for at least 1 month or until you fix things, whichever comes last.
• You have to reapply for MFIP.

Before putting you in 100% sanction, your job counselor must follow certain procedures, including trying to meet with you. They must also go back and look at your other sanctions. They should make sure all the sanctions were for a good reason, even if you missed your appeal deadline back then.

If you are in a 2-parent household and both parents are in sanction, you don’t get 2 sanctions per month. But if both parents are sanctioned at different times, they can be added together to get you to a 7-month sanction. You won’t get your full benefits back until both parents cooperate or show good cause.

There is a 60-month limit for MFIP. If you have certain things going on in your life you might be able to get MFIP for more than 60 months. See our fact sheet Getting MFIP After the 5 Year Limit.

The law used to be that you could never get an extension if you were in sanction in your 60th month of MFIP.  This law has been changed, so a sanction in your 60th month will no longer prevent you from getting an extension.