State falls behind again in processing food stamp applications

Alaska’s Department of Health is again slipping into a backlog of food stamp applications.

The news comes from state data included in a filing from the Northern Justice Project in its class-action lawsuit against the state. The suit asks the court to make sure the state issues food stamp benefits on time after years of chronic delays.

Attorney Nick Feronti represents the class of Alaskans affected by the backlog in the department’s Division of Public Assistance, which manages the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the state.

Thousands of Alaskans waited months for federal food aid last year because the state’s Division of Assistance had accumulated a backlog of crisis proportions. He said the latest filing shows that the crisis is ongoing.

“The data tells me that we, as a state and as a community, are still needing durable solutions to this problem,” he said. “I think that any defendant, big or small, can come up with temporary fixes that make things look better, but I think actually fixing a system is a different matter.”

Through a spokesperson, Division Director Deb Etheridge, who took on her role at the height of the initial backlog in 2023, acknowledged that more applications have been processed late.

“As soon as this happened, we immediately reengaged our backlog team and expect to be back in timeframe in the next 30 days,” she said in an email Oct. 9. “This is an especially busy time of year and that does account for the increase, as well as the re-implementation of (eligibility) interviews.”

State data shows that in September of this year more than 3,000 Alaskans have waited more than a month to have their paperwork processed for food aid. The division was processing 63% of its regular applications on time in September, which is its latest data. That’s down from 87% in May, but a significant improvement over last March, when only 19% of applications were processed on time.

Feronti said he filed the supplemental paperwork to show the court that the problems that led to the lawsuit are ongoing.

“We want the community we live in, we want the court, we want everyone to be fully apprised about what’s going on. The state has said, in its way various times, ‘Hey, we fixed this,’ or ‘The remedy is close,’ or whatever, and now we’re staring down quadruple digit backlogs again, and that means that the state was wrong,” he said.

This winter will be the third in which thousands of Alaskans who rely on food stamps are caught in a backlog and not receiving benefits.

The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization. Alaskabeacon.com.