State health agency revises food stamps backlog numbers

The Department of Health and Human Services' new estimate puts the number of North Carolina families waiting longer than a month for food assistance at more than 27,000, although DHHS spokeswoman Julie Henry said there may be a "substantial number" of duplicate cases still in the problematic system known as NC FAST.

Despite USDA threat, NC food stamps backlog got worse

News of that warning broke late last week, when the department released months of correspondence between Wos and the USDA.

"We pretty much had been thinking this was an improvement over where we were when [NC FAST] first rolled out. But I think we were surprised to learn we're still having backlogs to the extent we are," Alan Briggs, executive director of the North Carolina Association of Food Banks, said Monday. "All we knew is that we were experiencing a whole lot of demand."

Henry said clearing out duplicate cases is just one part of the department's effort to meet federal requirements by March. That's why she said members of the NC FAST team worked over the weekend to identify suspect cases that could be skewing the numbers.

"It's the oldest cases that we feel most confident are the redundant numbers," Henry said. "If someone's been waiting more than 120 days, we'd be hearing from them."

She said that, with duplicates out of the way, staff can focus on the real problems.

Records: DHHS downplayed food stamp issues

"If there are still people out there that haven't had applications processed, we want to know," Henry said.

New applications enter the statewide NC FAST system on the county level, either through case workers or clients via an online portal. Users might get stuck in the system and try again, either because of a glitch or because they stop and come back later with more information

"What we're doing right now is determining what needs to change in the system so that red flag comes up," Henry said.

In addition to technical problems with the NC FAST system, Henry pointed out that county workers entering cases have also been challenged by the integration of the Medicaid eligibility component on Oct. 1, a hard federal deadline that slowed down the application process.

"It's more questions to ask, more work to do," Henry said.

"What we're trying to figure out is how we can help relieve some of the burden on counties," Henry said.

All of those factors filtered down in 2013 to the state's most vulnerable populations, which Briggs said were deeply impacted by the cessation of benefits during the federal shutdown and congressional downsizing of food stamps program funding.

"Everybody recognized we really did get hammered in October," Briggs said. "About all a social service worker could say is, 'We'll put it in the system, but here's the number for the local pantry.'"

Briggs said preliminary numbers from the last quarter show food banks in North Carolina saw a 10 percent increase in food delivery over the previous quarter, which also saw a significant bump as problems with NC FAST rippled across county social services agencies. But he said it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause of that increased demand, which continues to rise despite signs of a slowly recovering economy.

"One of the dilemmas we have is, even though we see demand going up, we can't untangle the different events that are affecting us," Briggs said.

Duplicates aside, he said the actual backlog of waiting families is enough to notice.

"Whatever the case, we still have a significant number of families who are experiencing need because of delays," he said. "Whether it's 20,000 or less than 20,000 households, you hate it for any of them."