State Department of Human Resources details caseloads, child welfare costs and fraud concerns in budget briefing

Commissioner Nancy Buckner, commissioner of the Department of Human Resources, told the Joint Interim Committees that DHR serves about 1,400,000 people statewide and is balancing rising program demand with staffing shortages and high-cost placements as it seeks additional funding in the 2026 budget cycle.

"The SNAP program probably involves more people than anyone," Commissioner Buckner said, giving the committee a snapshot of caseloads and spending. She said SNAP served about 376,000 households (about 752,000 individuals) and that total benefits issued last year were $1,770,000,000 including about $15,000,000 in replacements.

Why it matters: DHR administers SNAP, TANF, child support, child care, adult protective services and child welfare; changes in funding or federal rules for any of those programs directly affect hundreds of thousands of low-income households and the network of childcare and social-service providers that serve them.

Commissioner Buckner summarized key program numbers and program limits. She told the committee the TANF caseload is roughly 5,832 cases covering about 13,585 recipients, with nearly 11,000 children included. She said 2,776 adults were required to participate in TANF job services and that about 62% of those participants were currently employed.

On child care subsidies, Buckner said the agency served more than 41,000 children last year compared with 46,361 pre-COVID, and that subsidy payments averaged $494–$572 per child per month; DHR paid roughly $257,000,000 to providers last year. DHR licenses and inspects child care centers; Buckner reported 1,396 licensed centers statewide.

Child welfare and foster care were central points of the presentation. Buckner said DHR ended the year with about 5,917 children in foster care and emphasized efforts to achieve permanency: "73.65 percent of our children that returned home last year, which was over 3,000 children, went to family." She said adoptions from foster care reached 621 last year after reaching a peak of 814 in 2020.

Budget request and pressures: Buckner said DHR’s 2026 budget request totaled $183,300,000, a roughly $37,000,000 increase over the prior year, intended to expand enriched community-based placements, support child-care quality (QRIS/STARS), and raise subsidy and provider support. She said the agency’s Office of Information Technology costs are nearly $1,000,000 a month and cited inflationary pressures on vehicle fuel, behavioral aides and other services.

Fraud in SNAP benefits was a prominent concern. Buckner told the committee that technological fraud and identity theft have driven a large increase in replacement requests, and that changes in federal rules removed the ability to replace benefits as of late December 2023. "The last 2 months of '24, we replaced a little over $10,200,000 in replacements," she said, adding the agency is working with its contractor on technical mitigations such as adding chips to EBT cards and restrictions for repeated phone calls.

Legislators asked for more detail on how funding lines relate to particular programs. Representative Blackshear requested a breakout of inflationary lines and Buckner pointed to large IT and provider-cost drivers; Chairman Lee pressed whether some child-related costs could be funded from the education trust fund rather than the general fund.

Staffing and litigation: Buckner said total DHR staffing rose to about 3,852 from a low of 3,723 and that turnover in child-welfare direct workers had fallen to about 49.03%. She cited high-cost placements for children with acute mental-health needs (examples included daily placement costs cited at $500 to $2,200 a day) and ongoing litigation, including a class action tied to insufficient community mental-health and mobile crisis services.

What the committee directed: The presentation was informational; members asked for further detail on specific budget lines and for DHR to supply more granular breakout sheets on inflationary costs and specialized placement funding. Buckner said DHR will provide additional detail and will continue work on anti-fraud and provider support measures.

Ending: Buckner closed the presentation with an overview slide and said she would provide requested detail. "If I can answer any questions, I'd be happy to," she said before lawmakers moved to the next agency briefing.