Every day, it seems that there is another article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch telling me how f’d up my state is.
After struggling for nearly a year to get federal food assistance to qualified low-income families, Missouri has decided not to participate in this summer's program — forgoing tens of millions of dollars in federal aid.
I already wrote dairy the other day about how Republican states justify tax cuts by jeopardizing the health and wealth of normal people. Despite an $8 billion surplus, the Missouri governor vetoed $550 million in state spending. Now, the Veto-proof Republican Legislature things it’s too much work to administer the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer program, or P-EBT. (Emphasis mine)
After struggling for nearly a year to get federal food assistance to qualified low-income families, Missouri has decided not to participate in this summer's program — forgoing tens of millions of dollars in federal aid.
The problems administering the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer program, or P-EBT, played a major role in the decision not to participate this year. Missouri education officials are not confident new money could be dispersed by a Sept. 30 deadline.
"As many Missouri families can attest, there have been a number of challenges throughout the process due to the federal requirements associated with accessing and administering the benefits," said Mallory McGowin, a spokesperson for the Department of Elementary and Education, which administers the program, "coupled with the limitations of our current state and local data collection systems."
You’d think, for almost 43 million dollars, they’d have enough money to update their computer system to 2023.
This summer's program would've provided $120 for food to any child who was eligible for free or reduced lunch during the last school year.
McGowin said in the 2021-22 school year, roughly 356,000 students qualified for free or reduced lunch.
If that held true for the next school year, that would mean the state is missing out on $42.7 million dollars in aid.
Think how more efficient and labor saving that would be.
"It's just really upsetting to see the dysfunction in the outdated data systems and the dysfunction of the communication between different departments and sharing of data," said Christine Woody, food security policy manager at the advocacy organization Empower Missouri.
Maybe the legislature thinks that only majority democratic voting areas are the only places in Missouri that has poor people, so it’s ok.
April Shields, a mother of a 13-year-old in the Kansas City area, just received last summer's benefits one month ago. She called the news "ridiculous" and said she learned the state would be turning down this summer's money from the media instead of state officials.
"You basically just robbed us of a benefit that you didn't have to do anything for it but just to do your job," Shields said.
"Most of us are working class, and if we don't have a paycheck for a month, everything goes to hell," she said. "So I think that it's really unfortunate that a decision is being made for us when there's children out here who don't know what they're going to eat when they go home in the evening."
Missouri began dispersing summer 2022 benefits in June 2023 and was among the last states to do so.
It is not yet clear whether the state will make a public announcement it plans not to proceed with the program — the state did not respond to the question.
Public announcements cost money, don’t you know?
By the way, click on this link for a Missouri Poverty Rate by County. You might notice how few counties are below 10%. Especially in the SE part of the state.
