One year after a federal judge ruled Missourians were being illegally denied food aid by the state, the Department of Social Services has made “no progress” in addressing the problem, the judge wrote in a scathing order this week.
“The excessive call wait times and denials based on the failure to provide a reasonable opportunity to interview persist and in some respects have deteriorated,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge M. Douglas Harpool in an order late Tuesday afternoon, referring to the call wait times for participants to receive required interviews to enroll in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “The current efforts do not fulfill (the state’s) responsibilities under federal law.”
Because of this inaction, Harpool wrote, Missourians who are eligible for food assistance continue “to endure wholly unacceptable bureaucratic telephone wait times and benefit denials solely because of the inadequacy of the system.”
Missourians living in poverty “have gone hungry,” the judge wrote, because of the state’s deficiencies administering the program.
Last May, roughly 51% of applications for SNAP were denied due to failure to complete an interview. In March that rose to 56%, according to court records.
The average wait time for the general call line was just over one hour in March and was 49 minutes for the line specific to SNAP interviews.
Thousands of callers are still automatically disconnected before getting through to a human being. Over 50,000 calls were automatically ended for the SNAP interview call line in March and nearly 16,000 for the general call line.
Missouri has been aware of the issues for years and was ordered into compliance ”yet no significant improvement in the administration of SNAP has occurred,” Harpool wrote.
A spokesperson for Missouri’s social services agency said it is “in the process of reviewing the court’s order,” but declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
In 2022, a lawsuit arguing the state’s “dysfunctional” call center deprives eligible Missourians of SNAP benefits, more commonly known as food stamps, was filed by New York-based National Center for Law and Economic Justice, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and Stinson LLP, on behalf of low-income Missourians and the advocacy group Empower Missouri.
Plaintiffs described subsisting on little food while using up prepaid phone minutes waiting on hold for an interview. Some with a disability said they struggled to understand the application forms but were unable to get through the call center for help.
An interview is required to sign up for or recertify SNAP benefits.
Without interviews, SNAP applications and renewals are automatically denied after 30 days — even if applicants have tried and been unable to get through.
Harpool last year found that the state’s practices — including long call center wait times and a lack of accommodations for those with disabilities — violate the laws governing the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Americans with Disabilities Act. He ordered the state to submit data regularly for the court to monitor compliance, and laid out steps to come into compliance.
The groups suing the state entered mediation with the department, but earlier this year told the court settlement negotiations had “irretrievably broken down,” according to the order.
While the plaintiff advocacy groups laid out specific policy proposals during negotiations, the state’s proposal “is fairly described as ‘trust us we are doing the best that we can with currently available resources,’” Harpool wrote.
The federal government pays 100% of the cost of SNAP benefits, and the state pays half of the administrative costs.
Missouri “has failed to identify a single program change or resource reallocation” made to address the issues raised in last year’s order, Harpool wrote.
The data the state has submitted monthly over the last year has not shown improvement.
On Tuesday, Harpool laid out benchmarks and steps for the state to take, including creating an Americans with Disabilities Act policy within 60 days.
The state must take whatever steps necessary, so that 90% of callers wait no longer than 20 minutes.
“This wait time is far more flexible than the goal private call centers have, according to (the state’s) own briefing, of answering 80% of calls within 2 minutes,” Harpool wrote.
The state also must ensure no more than 20% of applications are denied for failure to interview.
Missouri must make “substantial progress” toward these benchmarks within six months, according to the court order. If not, the court “will consider more specific and extensive remedial changes in the administration of the SNAP program.”
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
