Update 11: a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4: President Trump signaled Tuesday he would be withholding SNAP benefits until “Radical Left Democrats open up government,” even after his administration agreed to partially fund benefits. Read the latest here.
DENVER (KDVR) — Many are waiting anxiously to see what funds will be deposited onto their benefits cards after SNAP and other food benefit programs were allowed to lapse at the end of October.
On Friday, two judges ruled that President Donald Trump and his administration must use contingency funds to at least partially fund the SNAP program in November. SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, provides funding for food to over 600,000 Coloradans and approximately 1 in 8 Americans.
The action was prompted after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it was freezing payments to SNAP starting Nov. 1, saying the ongoing federal government shutdown meant it could no longer keep funding the program. The program costs over $8 billion to fund each month nationally.
On Monday, the federal government said that an emergency fund of $4.65 billion will be used to cover about half the normal benefits, which also exhausts the contingency fund.
Now, questions surround when those funds will be accessible to recipients and what amount of funding will be provided.
FOX31 asked the Colorado Department of Human Services if there had been any clarity shared with the state agency, and learned that many questions still surround the partial distribution.
“The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has not designated specific dollars per state,” CDHS told FOX31. “The compliance ruling cites that the contingency fund will be obligated to ‘cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments.'”
The state department said that this means the USDA will provide new maximum allotment amounts for households based on their sizes. It will also mean that states will have to recalculate eligibility for each household based on the maximum allotment amounts, according to CHS.
“At this time we have not received any table of information from USDA,” CDHS told FOX31 on Monday. “We anticipate that states will be required to recalculate the eligible grant amount for each SNAP household before benefits can be issued, though we have not yet received guidance from (the federal Food and Nutrition Services).”
The department said that if the federal government provides a full month of funding, issuing payments would take up to 10 days.
“However, as the compliance report indicates that FNS will be making partial payments, CDHS will need to implement certain system modifications to process the correct amounts,” the department told FOX31. “We are working closely with our vendor about implementation processes and timelines, and our EBT processor, Fidelity Information Systems (FIS). CDHS will issue payments as rapidly as possible upon receipt of federal guidance.”
The lack of SNAP benefits in November has led to many more relying on food banks and other food donation sites. FOX31 has compiled a list of food banks on our website here.
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