RICHMOND, Va. β Virginia officials are racing to reduce errors in the state's food benefits program to avoid paying a $270 million annual penalty if improvements aren't made.
The state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) error rate currently sits at 11.5%, well above the 6% threshold that would avoid federal penalties, according to Kevin Erskine, Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Social Services.
Virginia distributes about $1.8 billion in SNAP benefits annually.
Starting October 1, 2027, states will be required to match up to 15% of costs based on their payment error rates.
"This is not a fraud issue really," Erskine said.
Most of the errors involve overpayment of benefits, he explained.
"The reason it is high is a number of factors, one is self reported information that goes in when people are applying for SNAP, error checking could be better and we are focusing on getting our error checking tools in place," Erskine said. "We are focusing on training our benefits workers about how to look for what might be potential errors, and we are going to focus on making our application process easier for people so they don't inadvertently report the wrong information."
Erskine said Virginia's social services structure makes it difficult to cut down on the error rate.
Local departments of social services administer benefits rather than the state department.
"We don't have as much control over those benefits workers as [other states]," he said.
Ten states operate the same way as Virginia.
Of those 10, Virginia has the third highest error rate behind New Jersey and New York, according to numbers sent to CBS6 by Erskine.
The state has not had a SNAP error rate under 9% in the last decade, according to Erskine.
"Well it's a basic one," Erskine said when asked how the error rate reached this level. "It's not the best reason, but the federal government has never paid attention to this before, and so this has now become a priority and they are focusing on this specific error rate."
During a recent presentation about the error rate before the Joint Subcommittee on Health and Human Resources Oversight, state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D) suggested dramatic changes might be needed.
"What is remarkable to me is I've been here with nine different governors, and they've all had reorganization plans but nobody has ever wanted to deal with this," Deeds said. "Maybe we need to rethink the way we provide services through Department of Social Services and Department of Health."
Erskine said his team is committed to bringing the SNAP error rate down before the October 2027 deadline.
"Let's be clear. I'm not a fan of ever having an error rate. But now is the time to focus on it, and it's a good thing because we want to make sure we are spending Virginian taxpayer money appropriately and we also want to make sure that we are giving Virginians that need help the right benefits at the right time," he said.
Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) issued an Executive Order to address the error rate.
As part of that, Erskine said the state is implementing new training at local departments of social services, talking to technology companies about improving applications and error checking, and consulting with experts to identify best practices from other states.
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