Colorado is so slow at processing applications for food assistance that it ranks in the bottom five states and is now under a corrective action plan with the federal government.
While some counties in the state are meeting federal requirements, others are far behind, which means Colorado’s average processing times for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, are among the worst in the country.
Arapahoe, Denver and Weld counties are processing more than 90% of new applications within required timeframes, but El Paso and Jefferson counties, for example, are seeing success rates around only 50%, according to data obtained by The Colorado Sun.
When it comes to processing renewals on time, Pueblo and El Paso counties are as low as 26%.
The bottom line is that people who rely on nutrition assistance, formerly referred to as food stamps, are going hungry while they wait for the government to verify their applications.
“These aren’t just numbers to us. They are people,” said Shelley Banker, director of the Office of Economic Security at the state human services department. “We know that feeding people is important. That’s why we’re working with our partners in the counties to really dig into this and to understand what is happening.”
In counties that have fallen the furthest behind, employees are working mandatory overtime and are stressed out trying to keep up with the backlog, which ballooned during and after the coronavirus pandemic.
Colorado is one of about a dozen states with a county-run, state-supervised food assistance program, which results in wide variations across the state’s 64 counties. Counties make decisions about how to fund and staff the program, while the state offers guidance and technical assistance.
Colorado processed 74% of applications within federal guidelines, which state that households should be able to receive food assistance within 30 days for regular applications and within seven days for expedited applications, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s report for fiscal year 2022. The state was ahead of only Kansas, Florida, New York and Georgia.
The Colorado Department of Human Services, which supervises the food assistance program, was placed on a corrective action plan in the fall. The state agency released a copy of the corrective action Friday after The Sun filed a request under the Colorado Open Records Act.
“Colorado is severely out of compliance with federal requirements,” the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service wrote the state on Oct. 3. “This has resulted in a hardship to needy households across Colorado who are not consistently receiving access to SNAP benefits within 7 or 30 days.”
Colorado’s processing timelines have “been concerning for some time,” the letter said. Most recently, the statewide average was 84%.
In its response, Colorado officials said that El Paso and Jefferson counties account for 45% of late applications, and that for every 10% those counties improve, the state will improve by 1%. The state also vowed to work on renewal applications, which regularly are processed within federal timelines less than 50% of the time in several counties, including Denver, Mesa, El Paso, Jefferson and Pueblo, according to data over the past year.
When the renewals are not processed in time, recipients might experience a gap in services.
Julie Lafasciano, a Morrison resident, said she applied to renew her food assistance benefits in November from Jefferson County and has been waiting for a response since then. Her benefits have run out, and she calls the county almost daily, she said.
“The food stamps literally put food on my table,” said Lafasciano, who had an operation to remove a brain tumor a year and a half ago and can no longer work. “If I didn’t have the food stamps I wouldn’t have food.
“They are extremely helpful. Granted, I’m not eating caviar.”
Counties blame staffing shortages
Pueblo County, which processed just 26% of food assistance recertifications on time from December 2022 through October, blamed the pandemic and staffing shortages.
“There have been many unfortunate factors that have affected Pueblo County’s ability to keep up with the ever-increasing workload,” county spokesperson Adam Uhernik said in an emailed statement.
Pueblo and El Paso counties have instituted mandatory overtime policies, requiring staff to process applications at night or on weekends.
In Pueblo, the county’s Department of Human Services was down nine employees last fall, and workers are expected to process 160 renewals or 120 applications per month, Uhernik said. With so many staff vacancies, the existing employees had to work overtime and split up an extra 640 to 1,440 applications per month.
The counties said they were overwhelmed by applications last spring with the expiration of the federal public health emergency enacted during the pandemic.
Several rules were suspended during the federal emergency, including that counties did not have to interview people who applied for food assistance but could approve requests based on the information applicants entered on paper or online. The same employees who process food applications also handle applications for Medicaid, which meant they were at the same time dealing with a return to stricter processing requirements for the government insurance plan for people with low incomes or disabilities.
And, thanks to economic hardship during and post-pandemic, applications for food assistance were increasing.
Food assistance participation is up 35% since COVID
Participation in the food assistance program in Colorado is at an all-time high, with the state now serving 301,803 households, up from 225,292 in 2019. That’s a 35% increase.
In Pueblo County, the number of applications jumped 22% from July to November.
In El Paso County, 1 in about 9 people are receiving food assistance. The county has nearly 40,000 households on SNAP, about 10,000 more than before the pandemic.
The division in Colorado Springs that handles those applications, as well as Medicaid enrollment, has 135 workers and six unfilled positions.
On any given week, the county has at least 4,400 new applications and 6,100 renewals from people who must reapply to keep their benefits. For about a year, employees have been required to work at least five hours of overtime per month, sometimes by processing applications while sitting on their couch after hours, said Karen Logan, the economic benefit services director for El Paso County Department of Human Services.
The more applications they process, the more are filed, she said.
“Knock them down, they come back,” Logan said. “It’s a constant. It’s not like you get to an end. There is just one more behind it. It’s extremely stressful.”
The applications include information about jobs, disability benefits and rent or mortgage costs, all of which employees must enter into the state computer system and verify with paycheck stubs and rent receipts.
A new program, piloted so far in Arapahoe County and elsewhere with impressive results, automates the data entry. The grant-funded project, called intelligent character recognition, works similar to the way people can deposit a check in their bank account by taking its photo.
El Paso County is among the counties that will begin using the automation this month, and Logan is optimistic that the county’s processing times will rise dramatically. According to October data, the county processed just 26% of renewals, 32% of expedited applications and 54% of regular applications within the federal timeframe.
“That is really our report card of how we are doing in the work that we are supposed to be doing,” Logan said. “How do you know if we are doing better or worse if we don’t track? But it doesn’t always tell you the exact story.
“We were one of the leading counties there for a while and then unfortunately COVID hit us.”
SNAP was struggling long before COVID
Colorado has struggled with its food assistance program for years, however. The state has ranked near the bottom nationally for at least a decade. And Colorado failed to keep up with the requirements of a 2007 legal settlement to process Medicaid and food assistance benefits more quickly.
The problems have led to suggestions that Colorado overhaul its county-administered, state-supervised model in favor of a statewide processing system. But there has never been the political will to attempt to make it happen.
“We know that collectively, we have to be working together, because at the end of the day, people are not getting the food that they need for their families,” said Banker, with the state human services department. “And that’s important to us that they’re able to have what they need.”
Under the corrective action plan, Colorado is submitting regular reports to the federal government and a plan describing how it will reach target numbers. The corrective action has no expiration date and will continue until Colorado raises its timely processing rate to 95%, Banker said.
Only a handful of states are above the 95% target.
The Food and Nutrition Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told The Sun via email that it “recognizes state agencies have faced unprecedented challenges in the past few years with the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath,” but that “providing timely, accurate SNAP benefits is critical.”
In a letter sent to Gov. Jared Polis and the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee last week, the leaders of the Colorado Human Services Directors Association and Colorado Counties Inc. asked for more money for county food assistance programs.
While the workload is “skyrocketing,” counties received only a 2-4% increase in administrative funding from 2018-2022, the letter states. The budget committee provided an additional $16.7 million for SNAP administrative costs each of the past two years, but that is scheduled to expire in June.
“As providers of human service programs that support families, individuals, and children across the state, counties are working with Coloradans each day who are struggling to meet their families’ basic needs,” said the letter, signed by Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland, for Colorado Counties, Inc., and Mary Berg, executive director of the Jefferson County Department of Human Services and president of the Colorado Human Services Directors Association.
“We are writing to you to respectfully and urgently request your partnership in addressing the crisis in providing access to benefits for people with low incomes in Colorado, and the funding that is necessary to do so.”