State and federal officials scramble to fill gaps as roughly 450 000 New Mexicans face a looming cutoff of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits on Nov. 1.

Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

Federal and state officials said Friday they are working on a plan to shield 450,000 New Mexicans from pending lost federal food assistance benefits.

The United States Department of Agriculture informed states earlier this month that due to the federal shutdown, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program had insufficient funding to run after this month, and ordered states not to submit SNAP recipient info to state vendors.

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) said an “emergency food plan” is emerging that tasks charitable organizations and schools with counteracting the expected loss of $90 million in SNAP benefits for 250,000 New Mexico households.

“As I understand it, it’s a combination of looking at opportunities to scale up food deliveries through school lunch and breakfast programs, as well as increasing the food supply through our food banks and food pantries,” she said. 

She directed reporters at a virtual news conference Friday afternoon to contact state officials for more details.

Late Friday, Jodi McGinnis Porter, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s deputy communications director, told Source New Mexico in an emailed statement that the state is “closely evaluating the USDA’s ever-changing guidance and exploring every available option to maintain food assistance for New Mexicans.”

While she did not provide full details of an emergency food plan, she offered a few more details about what will and won’t happen Nov. 1. 

For example, she said recipients who have existing balances on their electronic benefit cards from previous months can still use their cards on Nov. 1 or after. 

But she said the state is limited in its ability to use its own funds to pay for November SNAP benefits. The $16.6 million lawmakers recently passed during the special legislative session to offset SNAP cuts “cannot be used,” she said, “because most of the funding was appropriated for specific purposes rather than replacing federal SNAP benefits.”

The state is also expediting the delivery of $8 million to food banks the Legislature passed during the special session, she said, but that is only a fraction of the estimated $90 million the benefits are expected to cost, McGinnis Porter noted.

Members of the state’s congressional delegation wrote to USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins this week contending the agency could use contingency funds to make up the shortfall. The USDA in a memo on Friday discounted that idea and also said states would not be reimbursed if they funded the benefits themselves.

Stansbury also said Friday that because the USDA’s Oct. 10 order prohibited states from sending recipient information to vendors, “many states” have interpreted the order to mean they can’t use state funds to refill the Electronic Benefit Transfer cards used by SNAP recipients. 

That means, supplemental SNAP funding New Mexico lawmakers passed earlier this month can “flow to our food banks, but it will not be funding that can get loaded on to individual EBT cards,” she said. 

To prepare for the loss of SNAP, New Mexico food banks say they are purchasing extra food and gearing up for additional food distributions that resemble those during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stansbury also compared the expected demand on food banks to what they saw in early 2020. 

“I do anticipate this is going to be very similar to the beginning of the pandemic, where you saw thousands of families having to line up at food banks and food pantries to get access to food,” she said. “It is a full scale crisis that the White House is manufacturing that is going to affect millions and millions of children.”

Along with members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez on Friday joined a group of 23 attorneys general denouncing the impending SNAP halt in a letter to USDA Secretary Rollins.

The letter calls on the USDA to account for any contingency funds it has available, what plans it has for those funds and how states should regard the Oct. 10 letter ordering states not to submit SNAP recipient info to state vendors.

The letter also says states have already taken steps to delay November benefits, “which will significantly harm millions of people who depend on SNAP to put food on the table, including children, seniors, veterans, disabled persons, and other vulnerable individuals struggling to meet their basic food needs.” 

The letter also argues USDA has no legal basis to prohibit states from sending already-calculated November benefits to EBT vendors, and it says contingency funds remain available to keep benefits flowing. 

“It is irresponsible to direct states to withhold this contingency funding, a decision which, if upheld, will devastate and cause irreparable harm to families,” Torrez said in a statement. “My office will do everything in its power to ensure these funds continue to be distributed and keep meals on the table for New Mexicans.”

Patrick Lohmann is a reporter for Source New Mexico.