Thirty-three states have enrolled in a new federal program that will provide low-income families with food assistance benefits this summer — but Vermont isn’t one of them.
Officials at the Vermont Department for Children and Families (DCF) confirmed Monday that they’ve decided to forego, for now, the United States Department of Agriculture’s “Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer.”
The summer of 2024 marks the “official launch” of a program that the USDA calls “a tested and effective strategy for ending summer hunger.” Summer EBT will provide income-eligible families with $40 per month in grocery-buying benefits per child via a debit card sent to households.
Deputy Commissioner of Children and Families Miranda Gray said Monday that the federal government would pay for 100% of the estimated $3.6 million that would flow to Vermont families this summer under the program.
But, she said the USDA would cover only 50% of the cost of administering the program.
“So we would also need to be able to say that we have that funding, and … we’re just getting into the budget season with the Legislature now, so that timing made this rather challenging,” Gray said.
States had to submit a letter of intent to participate in the program to the USDA by Jan. 1.
Gray said administrative costs could be significant, due to the fact that Vermont lacks the IT system needed to streamline the collection of eligibility information from participating households.
"Vermont is very committed to doing this, but also wanting to make sure we are doing this thoughtfully and correctly."Miranda Gray, deputy commissioner at Vermont Department for Children and Families
Over the past three years, Vermont has participated in a structurally similar “Pandemic EBT” program. Gray said the feds picked up 100% of the administrative costs for that program, which totaled $900,000 last year. She said the process involved manually inputting household eligibility information into spreadsheets.
Though Vermonters would receive significantly more in federal assistance than the state would incur in administrative costs under the Summer EBT program, Gray said moving forward with the initiative this year would cause undue “budgetary pressure.”
“It’s not just bringing this [federal food assistance] income here. There is an expense to Vermont to being able to administer this program now,” she said.
Gray said the state hopes to have a new IT system up and running at the Agency of Education and DCF in advance of the summer of 2025. And she said Vermont plans to permanently enroll in the Summer EBT program once that system is in place.
“Vermont is very committed to doing this, but also wanting to make sure we are doing this thoughtfully and correctly, because it is federal money that will be audited, so wanting to make sure that we are prepared,” she said.
Decisions by governors in other states not to enroll in the Summer EBT program have drawn sharp criticism from child nutrition advocates.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, opted out of the initiative on ideological grounds, saying the Summer EBT program is “another form of welfare.”
“I don’t believe in welfare,” Pillen said, explaining his decision.
In Vermont, meanwhile, the organization that’s leading the charge to end childhood hunger in the state is backing the administration’s decision not to participate in Summer EBT this year.
Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, said state agencies currently lack the technical infrastructure for a successful launch of Summer EBT.
“Our state agencies are eager to participate in Summer EBT, and they are committed to starting Summer EBT in summer of 2025,” Horton said. “So it’s not that they’re saying, ‘We’re not going to do this.’ They’re saying, ‘We’re not going to do this in Summer 2024.'”
Horton said state employees at the Agency of Education and Department for Children and Families performed “heroic” work over the past three years as agencies found time-consuming workarounds to comply with pandemic-era nutrition assistance programs.
If the federal government isn’t going to cover 100% of the administrative costs for Summer EBT, however, then Horton said it’s reasonable for Vermont to wait until a more streamlined IT system is in place.
“Our state agencies are already understaffed. They’ve been understaffed for years, and that’s been a choice of multiple governors over time,” she said. “That’s why we listened to them when they laid out all of the barriers that they faced to implementing those program.”
Horton said delaying enrollment in a program that will provide nutrition assistance to an estimated 35,000 children in Vermont is not a decision to take “lightly.” But she said the one-year delay in entering the program will set the stage for longer-term success.
“What we’re interested in is a Summer EBT system that‘s going to operate permanently in a way that’s very easy for families to use and doesn’t place a lot of burden on them to submit applications to the state,” she said.
Horton said Vermont has enacted other nutrition-assistance measures in the meantime that will mitigate the impact of not enrolling in Summer EBT this year, including a federal pilot that subsidizes school meals when kids aren’t in the classroom.
“What’s going to happen this coming summer is many, many more communities in Vermont will be eligible to operate free and universal summer meal sites for kids,” she said. “And so we’re working very closely with the Agency of Education to make sure that many more summer meal sites are going to be open and operating this summer where kids can get free breakfast and lunches all summer long.”
Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.
