USDA Looking at Fixing SNAP Program

The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service runs the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from the Federal side, but it is administered at the state level, but that has left it open to mistakes.

Part of the reason, according Assistant USDA Inspector General Gil Harden, is the bonuses provided to states that don’t erroneously give out SNAP benefits.

“That process if vulnerable to state abuse due to conflicting interests between accurately reporting the error rates or mitigating errors and receiving bonuses.”

Harden testified to a Senate Ag Committee last week that there are often private consultants hired to make the states look better through misrepresenting numbers, or even destroy records.

“States expressed concern over with what the consultants were wanting them to do but some states said they were ‘Keeping up with the Joneses.’ They needed to get their error rates down or else they wouldn’t be in line for the bonuses.”

Two states have already paid fines in the millions to settle their cases, but Brandon Lipps, who runs the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service says many of the problems stem from those who run the program, not are users of the program.