Alaskans who sued the state last year over long wait times for food aid are asking a federal judge to order the state to speed up the process.
The state's welfare department has struggled in recent years to process pending applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps. At times, more than 14,000 Alaskans were left waiting for benefits. And states must act, said Saima Akhtar, senior attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
“This is a very serious crisis,” she said. “I've worked on a lot of cases related to timely litigation, and I've never seen a crisis like the one we saw in Alaska.”
Akhtar and a coalition of lawyers sued the state last year on behalf of hungry Alaskans. U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason reinstated the class action in February after the parties initially agreed to put the case on hold while the state addressed outstanding issues.
Lawyers in the case are currently asking a judge for a preliminary injunction ordering the state to process the application in accordance with federal requirements. This is 30 days in most cases and 7 days for priority applications.
Akhtar said the court order could help the state exempt itself from federal requirements that could slow the process. The state may also implement what is known as broad categorical eligibility, which would streamline the application process, she said.
“If there is a court order and the government is internally considering whether it can take a kind of exceptional measure, the court order is a signal to go a step further and take the exceptional measure and explain why. “It’s something to offer,” she said. she said.
But Deb Etheridge, director of the state Department of Human Services, said the situation has improved considerably in the past few months. As of March, the state was processing about 90% of applications by the federal deadline, Etheridge said. As of early May, there were only 50 SNAP applications or recertifications remaining beyond the 30-day deadline, he said.
“But all 50 of those cases have been solved and remain unsolved.”[ing] For some reason, the status was degraded,” Etheridge said in a phone interview. “Part of the reason could be additional information, part of it could be a request for a fair hearing.”
Etheridge pointed to the state's decision to suspend federally mandated interviews with applicants as one reason for the improvement. The federal Food and Nutrition Administration initially warned the state that suspending interviews would jeopardize federal SNAP funding, but Etheridge said the state now has a waiver through June. Additionally, the department said it is currently training staff on best practices for interviews to avoid further delays after the waiver expires.
“I think what I’m trying to say is, we’re not waiting for the court to identify actions,” she said. “We are working very aggressively to find efficiencies and do our best to put that into action to benefit Alaskans who qualify as quickly as possible.”
He also pointed to other areas of improvement, including a new online application form, a new simplified application for seniors, and efforts to modernize the state's computer system.
Two bills are pending in the state Legislature that would require states to implement broad categorical eligibility for SNAP. States could do that on their own without changing the law, but Etheridge said that would be difficult with the legacy mainframe computer systems the department uses and that switching to a streamlined eligibility system would be difficult. He said it would have to wait for the planned IT upgrade. Regardless of whether new laws are passed or not.
Eric Stone covers state government, tracking the Alaska Legislature, state policy and its impact on Alaskans as a whole. Please contact us at estone@alaskapublic.org.
