Program Research Specialist​/Trainee 1 and 2; NY HELPS

Duties Description

The position will be within OTDA's Bureau of Data Management and Analysis.

Under direction of a Program Research Specialist 4, the incumbent will be engaged in developing, maintaining and analyzing data from various OTDA administrative data systems and other available data sources (such as Census products) to support OTDA’s public information, reporting, program performance, budget development (fiscal estimation) and policy analysis functions.

Specific functional areas assigned will depend on the incumbent's skills and experience and unit needs but will be in the general areas of
1) reporting,
2) ad hoc policy and fiscal analysis, and
3) program performance evaluation. The primary subject areas are human services program (e.g., cash welfare, nutrition assistance, home energy assistance, welfare to work, etc.) caseloads and expenditures, characteristics of program recipients, and projected and actual program outcomes.

The incumbent will be responsible for a) working with program and other interested parties to develop analysis approaches and reporting methodologies, b) using tools listed above to extract data from OTDA's various data systems and arrange the data in ways conducive to analysis and reporting, c) producing reports summarizing the results of the analysis, and d) creating new and updating existing process documentation.

NY HELPS:
This title is part of the New York Hiring for Emergency Limited Placement Statewide Program (NY HELPS).

For the duration of the NY HELPS Program, candidates may be hired via a non-competitive appointment if they meet the below NY HELPS minimum qualifications.

At a future date (within one year of permanent appointment), it is expected employees hired under NY HELPS will have their non-competitive employment status converted to competitive status, without having to compete in an examination. Employees will then be afforded all of the same rights and privileges of competitive class employees of New York State. While serving permanently in a NY HELPS title, employees may take part in any promotion examination for which they are qualified.

For Trainee 1 level, A bachelor's degree or higher including or supplemented by nine semester credit hours in biostatistics, data analysis, or data modeling, economics, econometrics, mathematics, research methods, or statistics.

For Trainee 2 level, A bachelor's degree or higher including or supplemented by nine semester credit hours in biostatistics, data analysis, or data modeling, economics, econometrics, mathematics, research methods, or statistics, and one year of professional research experience performing the collection, manipulation (e.g., data construction, merging data files, data cleaning, working with data files containing different levels of data) and evaluation of quantitative data.

For the Full Performance Level, A bachelor's degree including or supplemented by nine semester credit hours in biostatistics, data analysis, data modeling, economics, econometrics, mathematics, research methods, or statistics and two years of professional research experience performing the collection, manipulation (e.g., data construction, merging data files, data cleaning, working with data files containing different levels of data) and evaluation of quantitative data directed toward review, analysis, and presentation related to program operations.

A master's degree or higher including or supplemented by nine semester credit hours in biostatistics, data analysis, data modeling, economics, econometrics, mathematics, research methods, or statistics may substitute for one year of experience.

Experience in performing quantitative data analysis, program evaluation or statistical reporting using data manipulation and statistical analysis packages (such as Structured Query Language (SQL), SPSS, SAS, MS Access and Excel). Experience working with large administrative data sets is also preferred, as well as working with information technology and operational staff to maintain and enhance the data infrastructure and reports needed to support data…