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County economic-support office reports caseloads; staff note state limits on food-share purchases
Summary
Shauna reported food-share caseloads, processing timeliness and phone answer rates; staff noted a state policy (Assembly Bill 180) restricting purchase of soft drinks, energy drinks and candy with food-share benefits and an appropriation to support administrative costs.
Shauna, representing economic support, told the board Sawyer County serves about 1,787 food-share recipients with $279,632 in benefits issued for the reporting period; BadgerCare Plus caseloads were reported at about 1,334 cases, elderly/blind/disabled 239, long-term care 84 and 19 child-care families. Shauna said February processing timeliness for food-share applications was 100% and other timeliness metrics ranged from 98% to 100%, and she reported a 97% phone-answer rate across the consortium with occasional long waits.
Board members asked whether federal or state budget actions related to the war would affect programs; staff said they had not heard of federal cuts affecting local programs and pointed to a recent state change (Assembly Bill 180) that both appropriated funds (about $20.7 million reported in discussion) for administrative costs and required a state waiver restricting food-share purchases of soft drinks, energy drinks and candy. Staff also described time-limited benefits (TLBs) for certain non-exempt applicants and noted tribal exemptions continue to apply for Native American households.
Staff said they received permission to pull state-handled WEAP online applications into the local processing queue when needed, which will help speed local responses to callers who applied online but did not receive timely updates.
