(a) The State agency shall ensure that corrective action plans are prepared at the project area/management unit level, addressing those deficiencies not required to be included in the State corrective action plan. State agencies may elect to prepare these plans for or in cooperation with the project area. These project area/management unit corrective action plans shall be open-ended and shall remain in effect until all deficiencies in program operations have been reduced substantially or eliminated. Any deficiencies detected through any source not previously reported to the State agency which require incorporation into the Project Area/Management Unit Corrective Action Plan shall be submitted to the State agency within 60 days of identification. As deficiencies are reduced substantially or eliminated, the project area/management unit shall notify the State agency in writing. The project area/management unit shall be responsible for documenting why each deficiency is being removed from the Plan. The removal of any deficiency from the Plan will be subject to State agency and FNS review and validation.
(b) Content. Project area/management unit corrective action plans shall contain all the information necessary to enable the State agency to monitor and evaluate the corrective action properly. Also, State agencies shall establish requirements for project area/management units in planning, implementing and reporting corrective action to assist the State agency's efforts to fulfill its responsibilities for determining which deficiencies must be addressed in the State corrective action plan. States should consider requiring project area/management unit plans to include the following, based on the most recent information available:
(1) Specific description and identification of each deficiency;
(2) Source(s) through which the deficiency was detected;
(3) Magnitude of each deficiency, if appropriate, as defined in § 275.15(c)(3) of this part;
(4) Geographic extent of the deficiency (throughout the project area/management unit or only in specific offices);
(5) Identification of causal factor(s) contributing to the occurrence of each deficiency;
(6) Identification of any action already completed to eliminate the deficiency;
(7) For each deficiency, an outline of actions to be taken, the expected outcome of each action, the target date for each action, the date by which each deficiency will have been eliminated; and
(8) For each deficiency, a description of the manner in which the project area/management unit will monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the corrective action in eliminating the deficiency.
[Amdt. 160, 45 FR 15909, Mar. 11, 1980]