The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) has warned that unless the state provides urgent resources, it will lose millions in funding and face ongoing challenges to the efficiency of its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
In its biannual legislative appropriations request, the HHSC revealed that between 2019 and 2023, the HHSC was often unable to comply with the 30-day timeline that federal law mandates SNAP benefits be issued within. Only five of these 60 months were SNAP benefits processed on time. In extreme cases, applicants waited 160 days to get their SNAP benefits.
Texas has received multiple warnings from the Biden Administration over its compliance failings and risks losing $8.3 million in SNAP benefits if it does fix its problems.
As a result, the HHSC has requested $391 million from the state legislature to fund 1,800 additional staff positions and overhaul inefficient IT systems. In its request, the HHSC warned of the consequences if this was not achieved.
"To address the current and ongoing challenges, a series of process, workforce allocation, and systems/technology improvements are needed to effectively manage workload needs and maintain a consistent workforce," read the request.
"Without additional funding to come into compliance with federal timeliness standards, HHSC anticipates wait times for clients will continue to fluctuate, and Texas will only meet the federal standards between 60 and 90 percent of the time, which could subject Texas to federal financial penalties."
Newsweek reached out to the HHSC press office and Texas Governor Greg Abbott via email for comment.
State Representative John Bucy warned of the social impact of slow SNAP processing in comments to Nexstar.
"Texas is failing the most needy Texas families. We need to improve this. This impacts everyone," Bucy, a Democrat representing Texas' 136th District, said.
"Ultimately, when we have a needy family struggling, that's going to impact the workforce, that's going to impact you and me...when a huge chunk of us is struggling to get the needs from the government because the government's not fulfilling their obligations, then we have a problem, and it will have ripple effects."
Bucy added: "If we can't fulfill this obligation, then we're not fulfilling our role as government. And so I would hope that this should be a priority. We spend money on so many other things. Taking care of needy families that are Texas citizens should be at the top of that list."
Since 2020, the HHSC has been under a federal government Corrective Action Plan that aims to resolve the issues. Some progress has been made—last year, the legislature gave the HHSC funding to increase salaries and employ 642 new temporary workers.
In Texas, the processing times for Medicaid provision and Children's Health Programs (CHIP) also fail to meet federal laws.
The HHSC has warned that 233,000 Medicaid applications are currently overdue and out of compliance with federal standards. Additionally, the wait time for Texas Works Medicaid and CHIP is an average of 71 days—over three weeks longer than the 45 days federal law mandates eligibility should be determined by.
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