Do you know if a person who is exempt from food stamp work requirements due to receiving unemployment benefits may be disqualified - if they fail to comply with a work requirement by the unemployment program? Can the certification period be extended under special circumstances? Are utility expenses paid by an excluded member allowed in full? Take our New Food Stamp Challenge and put your knowledge to the test!
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I want to thank those of you who answered the food stamp accuracy survey. Your response was overwhelming! 154 responses were received. That amounts to nearly one third of our total statewide staff. State elections should have that kind of a turnout! When you consider that many of our staff have no direct involvement in eligibility determination or the food stamp program, this is an amazing response rate.
Here are a couple of e-mail responses to the request for suggestions on how to improve the Food Stamp accuracy rate.
E-mail #1
Hello Director Lombardo-
I think your letter was appropriate and correct. As an Eligibility Tech. III in the Coastal unit I have had the opportunity to review several of our Elig. Tech's cases.
Dear Staff,
The recent letter from USDA highlights the food stamp accuracy crisis that has been developing in the last few years. Upon my appointment as your Director, I immediately assessed the threat to our funding from this impending crisis. I informed our management at my first statewide managers meeting that we must turn the tide on food stamp errors, before our agency funding was put at risk. DPA cannot afford to absorb the one million dollar penalty that is projected to occur at the end of fiscal year '04, if we cannot substantially improve our food stamp error rate.