Delays in SNAP anti-hunger benefits keep Suffolk's needy waiting, records show

Widespread delays in processing applications for food stamps and other key assistance programs by Suffolk’s understaffed Department of Social Services last year meant some county residents waited months for help, records show.

Federal law entitles eligible households to food stamps — the formal name is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — within 30 days of application. For applicants with scarce resources, the deadlines are even shorter.

But between June and November of last year, Suffolk failed to process at least a thousand SNAP applications each month within the 30-day deadline, according to New York State Welfare Management System reports obtained by the Empire Justice Center, an Albany-based legal advocacy organization.

In June, the month of the county's best on-time performance, 1,055, or 34.3%, of applications were late. In September, the month of the county's worst on-time performance, 2,703, or 51.3%, of applications were late, and the average processing time for late applications was 61 days. By November, the trend had moderated, and 2,209 applications, or 49.3%, were late. 

Suffolk delays among the worst in the state

For each month from June to November, Suffolk's on-time performance was among the worst in the state, according to spreadsheets Empire Justice compiled comparing county-by-county data from the reports. 

“I struggled for three months to feed my kids,” said Susan Ellen Harkin, of Middle Island, who lives with two teens and a 22-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome. “It was the worst time of my life.”

To survive, she relied on food pantries and on her parents, who are in their 70s with limited resources.

“They were able to help me out as best they could," she said.

County officials said the Department of Social Services, like many such departments nationwide, faces staffing shortages and an increased caseload that have made it difficult to process applications on time. 

Data emailed by county spokesman Michael Martino shows a decrease in overdue SNAP applications from 2,214 to 1,791 between January and February. However, more than half the applications remained overdue, going from 56.7% and 51.6%.

The volume of both new applications and applications for recertification for the program decreased, and there were no overdue recertification applications, the county said.   

Empire Justice obtained the records reflecting SNAP delays under New York's Freedom of Information Law from the state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, an oversight agency. Newsday showed Suffolk's records to county officials, who did not dispute their authenticity. Newsday requested current records from the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance but has not received them.

The Suffolk Department of Social Services also was late in processing applications for the Family Assistance and Safety Net programs, according to records. Those programs provide cash payments to recipients and had far fewer county applicants than SNAP. During the six-month period covered by the records, the number of overdue Family Assistance applications ranged from a low of 103 in June to a high of 253 in September. The number of overdue Safety Net applications ranged from a low of 136 in August to 359 in June. 

Not everyone who applies for assistance is eligible. Some delays in eligibility determination could be caused by applicant error, and some applicants could file for assistance multiple times in a month, creating duplicate records.

But Jessica Radbord, senior benefits attorney in Empire Justice’s Public Benefits Unit, said such cases are rare. Suffolk, she said, appeared to be routinely violating the 30-day federal deadline for SNAP and a 30-day state deadline for cash assistance.

“They are not meeting that requirement, according to the data that we received from [the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance], and that is not lawful,” Radbord said, referring to the 30-day SNAP deadline. “This is the difference between people going hungry and having food.”

Another advocate, Robin Sparks, staff attorney in the public benefits unit for Nassau Suffolk Law Services, who represents clients with applications administered by the Department of Social Services, said the department was “blatantly violating regulations at this point with respect to all benefits programs.” She said she saw delays start in the fall.

“Now it’s so bad that the agency is setting up appointments for eligibility six to eight weeks out from the day the client applies,” Sparks said. "Well, six to eight weeks is beyond the time frame in which they’re required to make the decision.”

But, Sparks said, Department of Social Services staffers “try to meet emergencies as fast as possible” and appear to be well-intentioned. "They want to see the agency do what it’s supposed to do. This is painful for them, too," she said.

Staffing key to SNAP delays

Martino said in an interview that the Department of Social Services had been “crippled by a lack of staffing under the prior administration,” along with events like the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused applications for food assistance to increase, as well as a 2022 ransomware attack on the county. That attack slowed departmental work because staffers had to fill out benefits paperwork by hand for two months, officials said. To get online, the staffers used internet hot spots, but the devices only let five users online at a time.

“We are working as hard as we possibly can,” Martino said in an interview. In a subsequent statement, Martino wrote: “County Executive Ed Romaine has made it clear that a complete review and reform of the county’s Department of Social Services will be one of the highest priorities of his administration.”

Martino cited an October letter from Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance acting Commissioner Barbara Guinn to social services Commissioner Frances Pierre about “timely application processing,” that did not say the county was acting unlawfully.

In a statement, Anthony Farmer, an Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance spokesman, said the social services departments faced “unprecedented application volumes, compounded by staffing shortages in many areas.” 

Romaine was inaugurated last month. Pierre, the former CEO of a social services nonprofit founded by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, took over the $687 million department in 2019.

In Suffolk, 117,278 residents received SNAP benefits in December. About a third as many residents received benefits in Nassau, which has not experienced delays similar to Suffolk's.

Applicants interviewed for this story described the consequences of the delays as dire and humiliating.

Dionne Foster, of Deer Park, said that while she waited for assistance applications to be processed last year, she ran out of soap, “toothpaste, toilet tissue, trash bags, [cat] litter, cat food. My cable was off, my phone was turned off three, four times.”

Harkin said she had not worked since 2001 because of severe anxiety and a thyroid condition. She received disability payments until 2015.

Foster said she last worked regularly in 2014, when she left a job as an admissions specialist at a Georgia college. She now lives with panic attacks, anxiety and depression and degenerated discs in her spine, she said. She works in homeless outreach and runs a clothing closet at Federation of Organizations, a West Babylon-based nonprofit, she said.

A program to buy food

SNAP, a federally funded anti-hunger program established by Congress in 1964, served about 42 million Americans per month last year. In general, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C., research institute, a household’s gross monthly income must be at or below 130% of the poverty line to qualify for the program. For a family of three, that works out to an annual income of about $32,328. The income limit is higher for bigger families and lower for smaller families.

SNAP benefits are pegged to household income and are paid on electronic benefit transfer cards that can only be used to buy food. Statewide, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the average monthly benefit is $233 for each household member. During the pandemic, Congress raised benefits by 15% and boosted every household to the maximum benefit for their household size until 2021. Applicants, who can also receive cash benefits simultaneously, must periodically recertify to continue receiving SNAP benefits.

In Suffolk, local control strained during the pandemic, county officials said. “We entered into a different world,” with the number of applications for assistance climbing, Pierre said. For 2021, according to the county budget, the average monthly volume of SNAP applications was 2,449; it grew by 22.3% in 2022 and by another 2.4% for the first five months of 2023, reaching an average monthly volume of 3,065 applications. 

State records also show growth each year in the number of county residents participating in SNAP beginning with the start of the pandemic. Between December 2019, when there were 87,717 recipients, and December 2023, with 117,278, the number of Suffolk residents receiving benefits rose by 34%, about triple the statewide rate.     

But even as the volume of cases increased, “There was a challenge in bringing on workforce,” Pierre said. “Folks were not applying for Civil Service jobs.”

Suffolk’s 2024 budget shows 1,751 authorized positions for the Department of Social Services. The recommended operating budget showed 566 unfilled positions in 2023, a vacancy rate of 32%, and a significant portion of what AME, the union representing county workers, said were 2,280 total vacant positions in county government.

According to the union, the county employs 265 social service examiners who determine eligibility of applications for SNAP and other programs, with an additional 98 positions funded but unfilled. The overall number of vacancies for positions in client benefits is 119, Pierre said.

Department of Social Services strains to meet demand

To meet the growing workload, the department moved staffers from less busy areas like Medicaid, she said. The county obtained a waiver to Civil Service rules that permits it to hire workers who have not taken the Civil Service exam and has added more than 20 client benefits workers, she said. Each examiner processes five or six applications a day, but it takes six months of training before a new hire can work independently.

Social services officials also have tried to streamline processing by eliminating the requirement for applicants to complete an in-person interview and by taking other steps, like authorizing overtime, she said. Pierre said Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance officials told her last month that they would send a team to give “hands-on guidance” to the department, though no date has been set for their visit, Pierre said.

But competitive pay remains a problem, county and union officials said. Almost all of the vacancies are for level one examiners, whose annual salaries start at $42,360.

The examiner job requires a high school degree and two years of experience or some college education, according to a county job posting from last year. That pay is below what workers with those levels of education can earn elsewhere in the county. 

Suffolk AME president Daniel Levler said in an emailed statement: “The best way to enhance those conditions is by providing these essential workers with a competitive salary and benefits package that truly reflects their important contributions to our county on a daily basis. AME has sounded this alarm for years.” 

Sylvia Diaz, Suffolk's deputy county executive for health, human services and education, said examiner salaries “fall far short for people to live and thrive in Suffolk.” The county plans a formal salary study, she said.