HRA says federal limits hobble city response to EBT skimming as council weighs anti‑fraud officer and victims fund

Scott French, administrator of the Human Resources Administration, told the City Council Committee on General Welfare that the city’s capacity to address electronic benefit transfer (EBT) skimming is constrained by federal and state rules and by the loss of federal reimbursement authority.

“At this point, unfortunately, no one can fix that and replace those benefits,” French said in testimony to the committee, explaining that a federal direction ended the city’s ability to collect applications to replace stolen SNAP benefits in February 2024. He said that during the earlier period when replacements were available the city verified roughly 131,810 claims and reimbursed about $50 million overall, most of it SNAP benefits.

Why it matters: Council sponsors and advocacy groups argued that stolen benefits have immediate, serious effects on families, seniors and people with disabilities and called for both short‑term and structural remedies. Council Member Zhuang, sponsor of legislation to create a SNAP anti‑fraud officer and a public awareness campaign, said the city needs a centralized position to identify fraud hotspots, coordinate prevention and publish annual reporting on incidents.

HRA’s limits and state role: French and other agency witnesses told the committee that New York State and federal authorities control EBT card issuance and much of the transaction data needed to detect patterns and replace stolen funds. “We were instructed that we were no longer able to actually even accept SNAP skimming applications anymore,” an HRA official testified, and urged Albany to fast‑track EMV chip cards for EBT as a more secure long‑term fix.

Advocates’ case: Nonprofit providers and coalitions urged immediate mitigation funding and policy changes. Judy Secon, deputy executive director at New York Common Pantry, and others pressed the council to baseline Community Food Connection funding at $100 million and to push the state for a victims compensation fund that would reimburse households who have had benefits stolen. Community testimony emphasized that many victims are older adults, people with disabilities or families who cannot wait for long procurement or technical solutions.

Council reaction: Members repeatedly pressed HRA for numbers, language access for outreach, and clarity on who to call when benefits are stolen. HRA said it is scaling multilingual outreach (texts, emails, push notifications), promoting the card‑freeze tool and coordinating referrals to law enforcement when appropriate, but that the city lacks access to the transactional evidence that would let it operate a full replacement program independently.

What's next: Sponsors and advocates asked the council to press the governor and Legislature to fund a state victims compensation mechanism and accelerate EBT chip implementation while the council considers its own measures including the SNAP anti‑fraud officer bill and related public‑awareness efforts. HRA said it welcomes further discussions with the council on the legislation’s scope and implementation given federal and state constraints.

The committee did not take any formal votes at the hearing; members requested follow‑up data on reimbursement totals, multilingual outreach reach and the timeline for state EMV deployment.