On July 30, 2018, the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the U.S. Department of Labor published the Senior Community Services Employment Program Performance Accountability Final Rule 2018 in the Federal Register.

ETA is adopting as a final rule without change the Interim Final Rule (IFR) published by the Department in the Federal Register on December 1, 2017. The IFR revised performance accountability measures for the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). The Older Americans Act (OAA) Reauthorization Act of 2016 (2016 OAA) amended the measures of performance for the SCSEP program in large part to align them with the performance measures mandated for programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and required implementation, including through regulation by December 31, 2017. The IFR revised the Performance Accountability subpart of the SCSEP regulations to reflect changes necessitated by the passage of the 2016 OAA. In addition, the IFR made minor, non-substantive amendments to other subparts of the SCSEP regulations to reflect the 2016 OAA amendments that aligned the SCSEP program statutory language with WIOA, such as updating outdated terminology and outdated references to the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA), which WIOA superseded. The implemented regulations, referred to as an IFR, took effect on January 2, 2018. The Department solicited public comment on the IFR, and considered these comments when it prepared the final rule.

Effective August 29, 2018, SCSEP grantees must report performance information under the measures implemented in the IFR and adopted without change in this final rule beginning July 1, 2018. The IFR included both the definitions of the measures and the processes used to implement these measures in the conduct of the SCSEP grants. These processes include how the Department and grantees initially determine and then adjust expected levels of performance for the grants, and how the Department determines whether a grantee fails, meets, or exceeds the levels of performance.

For more information on the SCSEP Performance Accountability Final Rule, please refer to 20 CFR Part 641.