Food Bank warns federal match change could force cuts to navigator services; asks for state support
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Summary
Vermont Food Bank told legislators its statewide SNAP benefit-assistance team (three full-time staff) helps keep people enrolled in programs, but a federal change raising the state match from 25% to 50% will require more state funds or reduced capacity.
During a presentation to the Agriculture committee, the Vermont Food Bank highlighted a separate but related funding need: maintaining and expanding navigator and benefit-assistance services that help Vermonters enroll in SNAP (ThreeSquares) and other benefits.
Representative Watson asked whether the Food Bank could help with navigator services that have been proposed elsewhere in the budget process. Carrie Staylor described the Food Bank’s existing statewide assistance unit: a team of three full-time staff (plus supervisory time) that operates a phone line, text and email channels and provides in-depth help with SNAP applications and complex barriers.
"Our team primarily does SNAP," Staylor said, explaining the unit can work statewide through remote channels and often handles cases that local benefit assisters refer because they are especially complicated.
Staylor said a recent federal change (referred to in testimony as "HR 1") has altered the required state match for some benefit-assistance funding. "It used to be that you were required to have a 25% match. Now you need a 50% match," she said, adding that without additional state match resources organizations will likely have to reduce navigator capacity instead of expanding it to retain federal dollars. The Food Bank said it will refer clients to Medicaid specialists rather than take on deep Medicaid assistance work itself, focusing its staff expertise on SNAP.
The Food Bank asked the committee and other legislative bodies for support to secure the matching funds needed to preserve statewide assistance capacity. Committee members said they expect the topic to be part of the broader budget-letter discussions and appropriation hearings; no vote or commitment on match funding was made at the presentation.
What happens next: presenters said staff and partners will appear before appropriations and other committees, and committee staff will circulate draft budget-letter language for members to consider including navigator-match support.
