Troy Sauve, a Fairbanks resident, submitted his applications for food and heating assistance to the Alaska Division of Public Assistance on Oct. 24. His eligibility hearing was held more than four months later.

Sauve, who works seasonally as a cook at a resort, relies on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to make ends meet. He is one of hundreds of Alaskans who have been waiting longer than three months for food assistance amid an ongoing backlog in the state office charged with processing aid applications.

Sauve spent hours on hold with the Division of Public Assistance, to no avail.

“‘It’s waiting to be processed’ — that’s all they can tell you. You don’t know how fast they’re going,” he said. “Nobody knows.”

The state remains far behind in processing food and cash aid applications for Alaskans in need, according to a court filing submitted on March 3. Nearly half of the pending applications for SNAP were not processed on time as of January, the report stated.

The report was the second one prepared by the Alaska Department of Health, after both state and federal courts ordered state officials to report once a month on their progress toward ensuring that eligible Alaskans receive benefits on time.

The court orders also require the state to offer affected Alaskans hearings before administrative judges. Sauve said he requested a hearing in early January; his hearing was finally set for March 5.

The report to the court was the latest indication that the state continues to fail to meet its legal obligations to provide assistance to vulnerable Alaskans.

One in 10 Alaskans relies on SNAP, which is funded by the federal government and administered by the state. Separately, more than 14,000 disabled, blind or elderly Alaskans rely on modest cash support from the state through the Adult Public Assistance program.

According to the report, 64% of expedited SNAP applications were processed on time in January, compared with 53% in December. At the same time, 18% of SNAP recertifications were processed on time, compared with 20% in December.

In the Adult Public Assistance program, no recent applications were processed within the required 30-day timeframe, according to the recent report. Most of the disabled, blind and elderly Alaskans who apply for the aid wait two months or longer.

The crisis-level backlog in processing assistance applications began in 2022, when Alaskans reported waiting months for the state to review requests for food aid.

The state has blamed the delay on numerous factors, including outdated technology, a 2021 cybersecurity attack, and “intractable staffing shortages.”

But state officials have not acknowledged that the beginning of the application processing backlog coincided with a 2021 decision by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to cut nearly a quarter of state positions responsible for processing applications and close several offices where Alaskans were able to apply for benefits in-person, replacing them with a phone and online process that has left thousands of Alaskans frustrated and unable to get timely information about their applications.

In 2021, the Dunleavy administration proposed cutting 101 positions in the Division of Public Assistance.

At the time, the Food Bank of Alaska warned that the cuts would make it harder for Alaskans to access SNAP benefits.

Lawmakers heeded that concern, reinstating funding in the 2021 budget for some of the positions. But when the budget hit Dunleavy’s desk, he vetoed that funding, cementing the cut of more than 100 positions and bringing the Public Assistance Field Services staff from more than 450 full-time employees to less than 350. Funding for field service staffing was reduced from $41 million to $33 million.

Within a year, Alaskans were going hungry.

In the months following the onset of the backlog, Dunleavy proposed millions of dollars in spending to boost aid to Alaska food banks and provide support to the overburdened Division of Public Assistance — far exceeding any potential savings that could have emerged from the staffing cuts.

What followed was a brief improvement in application processing times, before the backlog worsened again.

Dunleavy is now proposing walking back some of the staff cuts he enacted in 2021, by adding 15 permanent positions to the Division of Public Assistance budget.

But the proposed change comes even as funding for 30 temporary positions expires, meaning that in effect, Dunleavy’s budget proposal calls for cuts to the current funded staffing levels.

Recent data from the state shows that the department is struggling to fill existing positions, making little headway in its hiring efforts.

As of data collected last month, only 152 out of 223 positions related to application processing — or 68% — were filled. Of the remainder, the state was attempting to fill 43, while 28 were expected to remain vacant.

As the Division of Public Assistance operates with significantly reduced staffing, the state has relied increasingly on outside contractors to pick up the slack. The Dunleavy administration is requesting lawmakers continue funding a virtual call center operated by a private contractor at a cost of $8 million annually.

Meanwhile, Alaskans report ongoing frustration with their inability to receive timely responses from the Division of Public Assistance as their applications languish unanswered for months.

Nome Rep. Neal Foster said the public assistance backlog is “probably one of the biggest things we’ve been dealing with in our office.”