LEGISLATIVE ISSUE! Food Stamp Incentive Money - July 21, 2003

Directors, NCSSA, NCACBSS,

Last week and this weekend have been very hectic at the General Assembly. We were notified  through some legislators last week that the State Budget Office had received notice of the $10 Million Food Stamp Incentive Award from the Feds. This money came as an award for the reduction in food stamp errors by counties and had a dollar for dollar match bringing the total amount that could be drawn down to $20 million dollars. Because the notice of the money came in June, the State Budget Office viewed it as 2002-2003 monies and allocated the $10 million to help fill a void in "carry forward" money that is used annually to fund state projects. Normally in years when the budget is not so tight there is a very large amount of carry forward money given up by State Departments. This year they were only able to identify $65 million in carry forward money to fill a void of over $200 million for projects identified to be funded through carry forward money. The $10 million Food Stamp award was moved from DHHS to the University system to help pay for services that were appropriated with carry forward money. The Governor's office approved the transfer recommended by the State Budget Office.

In response to the news, we approached the Governor's office to express our serious concerns and objections to the decision. We learned that Secretary Odom and Deputy Secretary Cansler had already spoken with the Governor's office and repeatedly requested that they look for alternatives to using this money as the county DSS staff had earned it through their hard work. The Secretary had also made it clear that the money was targeted to be used for NC FAST and the reasons why that was so important.

In response to discussions with the Governor's staff, I was clearly told they were not willing to change their decision and it had already been moved to the university system. Several legislators became aware of our situation and did not agree with the Governor's decision to take the $10 million. As a result, around 11:00 pm on Saturday, the House Rules Committee approved an amended technical  bill (Senate Bill 75) that included the $10 million food stamp award broken down to provide $7 million of it to counties and $3 million to the state. (This S 75 was an amended version of the original technical bill sent to them from the Senate.) When the Senate originally sent the bill to the House it had included $180 million for a cancer center. The House took that amount out and only put in a few million towards the center. At around 2:30 AM on Sunday, the House approved the S 75 along with several other bills (including the Studies and Appointments bill) and sent them back to the Senate.

The Senate reconvened at 11:00 Sunday to vote on the bills and were not happy when they reviewed the House amended versions. As a result they voted not to concur with the bills and set up conferees to try and work out an agreement with the House. Negotiations were not going well and the House came back around noon and announced that if an agreement had not been reached by 7:30  they would adjourn for the session meaning that all the bills that had not been passed would be dead. They kept their word and adjourned at 7:30 pm on Sunday when the conferees were still at an impasse. This meant that S 75, that included the directive on how to use the $10 million food stamp award, was dead and the money would be sent to the university system through the Office of State Budget. Another bill lost when they adjourned was the Studies Bill (H 674) that included two studies we sought and were granted representation on - one was on State Personnel Rewrite and the other was a Living Wage Study.

I have talked with DHHS leadership on what to do next to find funds for NCFAST. They have already started to identify possible funding internally as well as have made a request to the Governor's office to assist in locating money as the year progresses. 

The Senate plans to reconvene for a short time in September to take up a few issues but the House will not be returning until May 2004. I will be sending out another update soon that will give you a recap of the bills we were watching this session. As always, if you have any questions or want additional information please feel free to give me a call at 919-786-4015.

Thanks,

Karen