Bladen County Department of Social Services Director Vickie K. Smith along with Brenda Burney, Food & Nutrition Services Supervisor and Lisa Nance, Income Maintenance Program Administrator attended the May 3-4 Economic Services Convening sponsored by the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners in Raleigh. The two-day event brought together federal, state and local officials to discuss ways that counties can improve providing much-needed economic services to citizens.
Ms. Smith stated that she and her staff received information and numerous ideas from Wisconsin State and Tennessee State Leaders that have made their Food & Nutrition Programs successful and is eager to evaluate our local program to make the program more efficient for our clients.
Officials from the Food and Nutrition Service Agency within the United States Department of Agriculture announced on the final day of the event that North Carolina was one of three states chosen for the next round of training through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Process Improvement Collaborative.
“Since the state was already working on their application processing timeliness, we thought North Carolina would be a good candidate for the program,” said Peggy Fouts, SNAP Director with the USDA’s Southeast Region.
For the past year, the NCACC has worked with county DSS directors and officials from NCDHHS to help improve the statewide application processing rate for SNAP (food stamps). NCDHHS received a warning letter from USDA in 2015 that said the state could lose more than $80 million per year in federal funding – most of which goes to county DSS agencies – if the state did not drastically improve its application processing and meet the federal 95% standard by July 1, 2016.
The NCACC sponsored regular webinars with NCDHHS officials and county managers and DSS Directors, and organized a February meeting with USDA Administrator Audrey Rowe in Washington, D.C., to discuss steps the state and counties were taking.
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