State sued over delays in public assistance benefits

JUNEAU — An Anchorage civil rights law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit against the state Department of Health over delays in processing applications for a program that provides assistance for thousands of vulnerable Alaskans.

The state’s adult public assistance program pays an average of $308.20 per month, and is often supplemented by federal assistance programs, according to the Department of Health. During the past fiscal year, an average of 15,385 Alaskans received the monthly aid, alongside a separate transition program.

In Wrangell, the program paid out benefits to an average 57 individuals a month last year, totaling just over $200,000.

State officials have been scrambling for months to clear a backlog of applications for state assistance, including thousands of Alaskans who have been waiting months for food stamp benefits.

To be eligible for the adult public assistance program, applicants must be blind, disabled or aged 65 or older. There is also a low-income threshold to receive assistance: Monthly income for an individual must be below $1,276 per month, and below $1,899 for a couple. Individual applicants must have less than $2,000 in assets, excluding a home and a car. For couples, the asset limit is $3,000.

The lawsuit, filed in Anchorage Superior Court on April 17 by the Northern Justice Project, asserts that the Department of Health violated state law by not processing a “vast majority” of applications within the 30-day limit set out in state regulations. State statute says that applications must be processed “promptly.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of thousands of low-income Alaskans who have experienced application delays.

At least 8,532 Alaskans had applied for adult public assistance between July 1 of last year and April 3 of this year. The state Division of Public Assistance’s data — included in court documents — showed that in 2020, 81.4% of applications for adult public assistance were being processed within 30 days. By March of this year, that had dropped to 37.1%.

The Northern Justice Project is involved in the separate lawsuit in federal court challenging the food stamps delays.