[A]fter error rates plagued Vermont’s food stamp program for years, the state is now back in line with federal requirements, and trends point to continued improvements, the Department for Children and Families announced Wednesday.
Vermont’s federally funded food assistance program 3SquaresVT ranked as the most improved program in the nation last year, according to the department.
The news follows three years in which the federal government imposed penalties on Vermont’s food assistance program for the high rate at which 3SquaresVT was giving incorrect benefits to recipients.
Beginning in federal fiscal year 2011, Vermont faced punitive fines from the federal government because of a flaw in the state’s calculation process that resulted in food stamp recipients receiving too much money.
The largest penalty was handed down in fiscal year 2013, totaling close to $550,000. The department is currently in the early stages of appealing that fine, according to officials.
Since then, the program has turned around its accuracy record. Vermont’s error rate in federal fiscal year 2014 was 2.58 percent, a sharp improvement from 9.66 percent the previous year — when Vermont ranked among the worst states in the country for food stamp error rate.
The department credits the success to an increased number of staff managing the eligibility for the food assistance program and new training resources.
“Really, it’s the staff that turned this program around,” said Sean Brown, deputy commissioner of DCF’s economic services division.
The department now has about a dozen benefits officers on staff, Brown said, and recently has stepped up efforts to improve training opportunities. As increased staffing has helped spread out the caseload, utilization of the program is in decline. There are now about 87,000 Vermonters who receive 3SquaresVT benefits, down from close to 100,000 in September 2013.
Composition of a household, income and expenses all factor into the recipient’s benefit, Brown said.
“It’s really about making sure that people are getting the benefit they’re entitled to,” he said.
Numbers for the first quarter of FY 2015 show that 3SquaresVT seems to be on track to continue to improve the accuracy rate, Brown said, as the program has an error rate of 0.67 percent.
“I’ll be honest with you, I want us to be No. 1 in the nation the following year,” Brown said.
Brown estimates that in order to do that, Vermont would need to get the error rate down to below 0.25 percent.
Secretary of Human Services Hal Cohen applauded the news that the food stamp program has dramatically reversed its error rates.
Cohen recalled that he found the news troubling when the news broke that 3SquaresVT was poised to be penalized by the federal government for accuracy problems. At the time, he headed the Central Vermont Community Action Agency.
“We want all the resources possible to be able to go toward 3SquaresVT,” Cohen said.
Cohen is confident that the 3SquaresVT error rate will not be impacted by the labor savings booked in the FY 2016 state budget.
The AHS, as the largest agency in state government, will bear a large chunk of the $10.8 million in labor and personnel cuts in the budget. Cohen expects to be releasing details of the agency’s plan in the coming weeks.
“What we’ve put forward is not going to negatively impact in particular the work that we’ve done in terms of eligibility for 3SquaresVT,” Cohen said.
