Senate Workforce Committee advances bill to expand SNAP employment and training requirements

Members of the Senate Workforce Committee on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024, advanced a bill that would expand the employment and training program requirements for recipients of SNAP. (Will Price | West Virginia Legislative Photography)

A bill advancing in the West Virginia Senate would expand the employment and training requirements for people receiving benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.

The Senate Workforce Committee on Tuesday signed off on Senate Bill 562 .

With some exceptions, able-bodied childless adults ages 18 through 53 are required to participate in employment or training in order to receive SNAP. If the legislation were to pass, those work requirements would be expanded to age 59.

Kent Nowviskie, deputy commissioner for programs and policy for the West Virginia Department of Human Resources Bureau for Family Assistance, testified that the number of affected people would fluctuate, but currently it would affect fewer than 8,000 people.

It would cost money for the department to develop systems and programming changes, he said, but he didn’t have an exact figure.

He told committee members that implementing the new rules would require the bureau to use a portion of its $622,000 administrative budget, which might affect the number of training programs it has for SNAP recipients. Currently the department partners with four organizations for employment training: Goodwill Industries of the Kanawha Valley, West Virginia Women Work, the Coalfield Development Corporation and Blenko Glass.

“It really kind of remains to be seen if we’re going to be able to continue those partnerships with the funding that we have available,” he said. “We will do our best to try to keep those going because they really do provide excellent services to the people who volunteer for the program now.”

Nowviskie thanked the committee for “taking an interest in helping us help SNAP recipients achieve self sufficiency. That is our goal as well as yours, so again thank you for that,” he said. “If it’s the will of this body, we will do our best to implement it.”

The bill would also require any report by the Department of Human Services measuring data about the mandatory SNAP education and training program submitted to the federal government also be submitted to the ​Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability (LOCHHRA) and that the department make a list of employment and training resources available in each county office.

Speaking to a reporter after the meeting, Workforce Committee Chairman Rollan Roberts, R-Raleigh, the legislation’s lead sponsor, emphasized that the legislation would be implemented over three years.

“That’s the beauty of this,” Roberts said. “It’s not that we’re cutting everybody off. Number one, this won’t begin until Oct. 1 with the federal fiscal year. So we’ve got seven months right now for the agency to work on things, to get started. And then after that, the clock ticks for three years, and we’ll see how we do with that population. LOCHHRA – [the department] will report to LOCHHRA and they have the ability to adjust or change or extend. And so this is really a partnership with everybody.”

Versions of the legislation had been pulled from two prior agendas of the Senate Workforce committee.

Caitlin Cook, director of advocacy and public policy for Mountaineer Food Bank, said she was pleased to see the adopted committee substitute has exemptions for parents for children. The food bank shares the goal of wanting people to be self-sufficient, she said, but the path has to be through effective training programs.

“And I think there’s still some concern with this bill as it was passed out of committee, as some of the redundancy, some of the administrative burden that it places on the department and what that end product will be,” Cook said. “Will it be meaningful employment and long term or will it be more hungry West Virginians that are relying on the charitable food network?”

The legislation is supported by the Opportunity Solutions Project, a partner organization to the conservative lobbying group Foundation for Government Accountability.

Scott Centorino, deputy policy director for FGA, testified that expanding the requirements “can be done, and it should be done.”

“Our mission from the very beginning was to get people back to work, and the best way to do that is through welfare reform,” he said. “We work across welfare programs including food stamps and obviously our mission has expanded beyond that but that’s still our core mission, to get people to achieve the American dream through self sufficiency.”

The bill will next go to the Senate Finance Committee for consideration.

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