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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Idaho May Switch To Welfare Debit Cards New System For Food Stamps, Welfare Could Be Installed In Two Years

Soon there won’t be any paper food stamps. Or welfare checks, either.

Idaho is moving slowly toward a system where aid recipients would be issued a debit card. They’d run that card through an ATM machine at the supermarket to buy food, or through machines elsewhere to cash welfare checks or to buy other items.

Food stamps have become a second form of currency, said Judy Brooks, state welfare administrator. That’s led to “quite an extensive casual use,” meaning people are using food stamps to pay baby sitters or to trade for other non-food items or services.

Under the debit card system, food stamp recipients wouldn’t get change back. Leftover money would remain in their account for future purchases. That also could cut back on fraud, Brooks said.

Fraud isn’t the major issue driving the change, she said. The federal government is moving to eliminate paper food stamps because of the cost of producing them.

Other states are studying how they’ll move to debit card systems. At least one, Maryland, already made the change.

Brooks said it’s a more complicated change to make in a large, rural state like Idaho.

Idaho likely will join with a group of Northwest states to hire a private vendor to operate the debit card system.

The hope is that the group will get a better rate than a single state could.

There would be a system to process the cards in remote locations that don’t have ATMs, possibly a dial-up system or a credit-card type system.

Idaho expects to have a feasibility study of the change completed by May. The new system - for food stamps, welfare payments, and possibly other programs such as child support - would be running in about two years.

Linda Caballero, director of the state Health and Welfare Department, announced the program last week in her annual presentation to the Legislature’s budget committee. It fits in with Health and Welfare’s commitment to move toward privatization, Caballero said.

, DataTimes