Richmond VA March 22 2013 Virginia is beefing up its effort to fight food stamp fraud.
The commonwealth and Maryland are entering into new data-sharing agreements with the U.S. Department of Agriculture intended to help combat abuse of the massive food-assistance program.
Through the program, the federal administration will share its experience monitoring for fraud at retail stores with state agencies to help them target recipient fraud. Recipients enroll at the state level.
The agreements mark the newest front in expanded efforts to crack down on abuse in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. While program administrators maintain that fraud accounts for a fraction of the program, the program is massive.
Nationwide, roughly 250,000 outlets or stores have the legal ability to redeem benefits for the about 47 million people who rely on the public assistance.
Food stamp “trafficking” is generally the exchange of benefits for cash. This year, the USDA expanded the definition to also include things like “water dumping,” when a recipient buys beverages in containers that carry a refund deposit for the purpose of dumping the contents and returning the containers for cash.
Nationally, the trafficking rate fell from about 4 cents on the dollar in 1993 to about 1 cent on the dollar from 2006-08, according to the USDA’s latest figures.
“What this will do is give us an opportunity to look more at patterns of usage of the EBT cards that will help us identify what is an unusual pattern and allow us to investigate,” said Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel.
As the economy dipped, the number of recipients swelled in Virginia, and 940,712 people received benefits in February.
Virginia and Maryland were selected to begin the new program because they have fairly significant SNAP populations and willing administrations, according to U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon.
USDA says it intends to use data collected under the agreements with Virginia and Maryland, as well as other information-sharing arrangements, to develop an enhanced monitoring tool for states.