Tenn. plans to allow schools to distribute food assistance cards
After coming up short on distributing federal food assistance to hundreds of thousands of eligible children, Tennessee officials now plan to abandon an application process and instead allow schools to give payment cards directly to qualifying families.
The state has until Sept. 30 to distribute funds through the federal Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer, or P-EBT, program.
For months, Tennessee required families go through an additional application process to receive their P-EBT payment cards, despite already qualifying for the funds through the free and reduced lunch program.
The Tennessee Department of Human Services as of Thursday was still awaiting approval on the proposal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which Commissioner Danielle Barnes said the state is “expecting any minute.” The proposal also includes a plan to distribute another round of payments to certain families.
Barnes spoke to legislators about the proposal on a Thursday morning call, outlining DHS’ plan for getting P-EBT funds to the 217,000 eligible children whose families did not apply this summer for payment cards.
The cards, funding for which was approved by Congress this spring, are intended to reimburse families for missed meals after schools shut down in March.
Had the state not come up with a new proposal for distributing funds by the end of September, Tennessee would have forfeited about $54 million in federal food aid. Of the children eligible for P-EBT but whom Tennessee required to reapply for the benefit, 56% were not enrolled.
In Tennessee, 526,000 children have received P-EBT funds, including the families who applied and those who automatically received benefits due to enrollment in other welfare programs.
“We came up with a plan to get benefits closer to students’ actual homes,” Barnes said on the Thursday call.
Once the department receives federal approval for its new distribution strategy, the state will issue P-EBT cards for the remaining eligible students and send those cards to the school that the child last attended.
The schools will then notify families that the cards are waiting for them to retrieve.
Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn said last week that her department had recently begun working with DHS to help facilitate ways to get the benefits to children in need.
“We were one of the few states that did do the application process, and we do think we made tremendous progress,” Barnes said in a news briefing Thursday afternoon, adding that there were still a couple hundred thousand children who had not been able to enroll.
Barnes said she and the department “don’t know” why those families didn’t go through the previously required application process.
Families will have the option to go pick up the P-EBT cards from their school. If the parents decide not to, the remaining payment cards will be destroyed, Barnes said.
In Tennessee, families were eligible to receive about $250 per child for school meals missed between March and May.
The payment card can be spent at grocery stores and places where EBT cards are accepted.
Signe Anderson, director of nutrition advocacy for the Tennessee Justice Center, which has urged state officials for months to remove the application requirement for P-EBT, called the new plan on Thursday a “good step in the right direction” and hoped the USDA would quickly approve it in time for the end-of-month deadline.
“We are grateful that they’re working on this to get the benefit to the children who have been missed by the first round,” Anderson said. “The issue we’re still a little concerned about is it’s still not direct issuance.”
Anderson was referring to other states’ decisions to merely mail the PEBT cards directly to all families who were enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program. DHS officials previously cited the potential for fraud or cards being sent to the wrong addresses as a reason to require eligible families to apply.
“With all that schools have on their plate right now, and families too, we’re concerned that it might not get to all the families who need it, who are eligible,” Anderson said.
In addition to the new plan for handing out the remaining P-EBT cards from earlier in the year, Barnes said Thursday that DHS is also seeking approval to distribute a second round of meal payments for August and September.
To receive the extra round of P-EBT funds, a student enrolled in the free or reduced lunch program must be learning virtually or attend a school that has been closed at least five days.
The student’s family must also be unable to pick up meals from the school.
“Local districts will verify the students that meet the qualifications before distributing the cards,” Barnes told legislators.
She also announced that as of Thursday morning, the state had received a waiver to extend its summer feeding program through Dec. 31, which the department believes “will lessen the need for P-EBT.”
The department did not respond to a request for additional information about the new proposals.
Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@ tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.
“We are grateful that they’re working on this to get the benefit to the children who have been missed by the first round. The issue we’re still a little concerned about is it’s still not direct issuance. With all that schools have on their plate right now, and families too, we’re concerned that it might not get to all the families who need it, who are eligible.” Signe Anderson Director of nutrition advocacy for the Tennessee Justice Center