Welfare budget set, without funding for food stamp multi-day issuance changeover

The budget set this morning for the Division of Welfare within the state Department of Health & Welfare doesn’t include funding to switch to a multi-day issuance of food stamps, rather than the current single-day issuance; the Northwest Grocery Association has offered $100,000 toward the switch, but Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, said it’d cost the state’s taxpayers more than that each year, into the future. She noted that complaints of massive lines, crowds and spoiled food on the first of the month when Idaho food stamp recipients get their benefits have been coming from one southern Idaho grocery chain. “I have not had anyone come to me about this issue,” Broadsword said. “I have not heard of any grocers in the north having this problem.”

Sen. Lee Heider, R-Twin Falls, asked Broadsword, “I know the governor recommended it and the agency requested it and it’s really a good idea. Why did we decide not to fund that?” Broadsword said it’s a policy change that really should come through the germane committees in both houses, not be set by JFAC. “There has been no action by the germane committees. If we stepped out and funded it, we’d be stepping in front of the policy decision.”

Broadsword said as a policy issue, the multi-day food stamp issuance should be vetted with full public hearings in the germane committees; no one’s brought a bill, however. She added, “They may have a very viable problem, but I’m not sure that it’s up to all the taxpayers of Idaho to pay for their problem.”

The Welfare Division budget does include $250,000 that the governor hadn’t recommended, which would bring a like amount in federal matching funds to offer job search help for able-bodied adults on food stamps, the only food stamp recipients not now required to go through that program. That’s because Health & Welfare gets a lower matching rate in federal funds for that population, so it hasn’t been able to afford to offer the program.

Broadsword, who worked with a group of JFAC members on the budget, said, “The working group felt that we’ve got pregnant women out there looking for work, why are able-bodied adults not out there looking for work when they apply for food stamps as well? It’s a matter of fairness.”