Transcripts For CSPAN2 Senate Agriculture Committee Scrutinizes Supplemental Nutrition Assistance... 20170915

I call this to order. For the last several monthess i along with Ranking Member and colleagues on this committee have been working on a new farm bill. An important part of this process has been to hold hearings on each title. Im proud to say the committee has officially conducted the work, having held hearings so far on eight titles. Todays hearing covers the four and five. Two titles remain. The reauthorization process affords us the opportunity to review the full range of usda programs to insure that theyre operating efficiently and effectively. Not every Program Needs to measure overall but many can benefit from increased deficiency, improved integrity and the reduction of waste. As we conduct this review, it is important to remember the purpose of these critical nutrition programs. Theyre not about long term. Theyre about giving aid in times of trouble. Theyre about insuring our nations security, helping folks become productive members of our economy and assisting the vulnerable among us who cannot help themselves. Part of a thorough review includes insuring theyre being implemented properly at the federal and state levels. Now unfortunately we have learned of some significant issues are eguarding theed administration and oversight of the s. N. A. P. Program. Investigations by the food and Nutrition Service, the Departments Office of Inspector General and the department of justice have revealed that states have purposely used quote whatever means necessary, unquote to mislead the federal government to obtain bonuses or avoid financial penalties. Witnesses here today will provide details with what we had discovered was that the integrity of the snap program cannot be verified. In all but a few states the process used to measure errors has failed. Thus the level of erroneous payments states have made when administering the program is completely unknown. Simply put no one knows the error rate of s. N. A. P. And that is unacceptable. And the federal government does not even know the basic element of the problem, such as how long this has been occurring. This program accounts for over 75 of farm bill. Making every dollar count and insure the right amount of assistance is going to those who really need it, then something needs to change and with the help of the distinguished Ranking Member, something will change. We are not talking about rampant fraud here. Were not talking about rampant program abuse. We are talking about states cheating and gaming the system, resulting in an inability to even measure how many taxpayer dollaress are being spent in error. This is not fair to taxpayers. And its not right. It is our duty to insure that the integrity of this program which is vital to those among us in need is able to be measured and verified. Once that is accomplished, we must also insure this program is truly serving those in need, helping them to achieve self sustainability and not hindering their ability to succeed. Now much has been made of the quote work requirements. But it is our job to be at liberty and harm of enabling those receiving public assistance to achieve self sufficiency. The last farm bill included a significant investment in work pilots. The test effective methods of insuring longterm success. We will need to build on that investment and continue to test proven methods of success. As we undertake this process with the goals of Program Integrity and truly helpling people to become self sustaining, we will need the support and flexibility of all programs. Lines in the sand and uncompromising positions will benefit nobody and especially not the vulnerable populations these programs serve. Working together i am confident we can find a way to insure the integrity of s. N. A. P. Sw the critical need the program meets. I recognize senator for any remarks you may have but first id like to take a moment to express appreciation to the departments food and new trishz services and other agencies in their work to providing assistance with regards to the hurricanes that we have experienced in this country. I understand that Department Staff have worked around the clock to provide services and insure they have access to assistance in this time of need. I would like to thank senator secretary perdue and his staff and for everybody involved for their dedication and hard work. It will take the same spirit of working together for those of us to remedy these and other issues that need to be doctorsaddress the farm bill. Well, thank you, mr. Chairman and that continues to be a great plethser to work with you and i want to start out echoing the comments you just made about first recognizing the heart breaking devastation hurricanes harvey and irma have caused in the past. They underscore the critical need for disastrous systems for farmers and our families and i want to recommend secretary perdue for his quick action to provide Food Assistance and flex n ability for those in the path of the storm so having enough to eat is the least of their worries. Our families deserve a reliable saflt net in times of need, whether its making disaster snap available during the hurricane or insuring they can weather the storm of job loss during a recession, Nutrition Assistance Programess are vital to rebuilding after disaster strikes. The Great Recession hit our country like a force of nature, causing too Many Americans to lose their homes and jobs. For those who faced unexpected unumploemnt or underemployment the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is a lifeline to keep food on the table while they look for a stable, longterm job that allowess them to fully support their families and this is a point worth repeating. Snap supports families. Its about america saying we got your back when there is an emergency. Half of snap recipients are children, as you know. The vast majority are children, seniors, people with disabilities or parents and care govern givers that live in those households. Approximately 1 1 2 million veterans receive snap at some point during the year and many of those heroes are considered able bodied despite lasting challenges from their time of service. Even current military families face current food hardships. Many utilize snap and visit food banks often stretched thin to meet community needs. Its important we keep these people in mind like mr. Parker whos here today to share his story about the impact of snap in his life and thats an important story and its important reflecting other stories as well as we consider changes to nutrition assistance in the farm bill. As a committee we can make improvements to snap. Hold every Single Program in the farm bill accountable. As we should for every area of the federal government and we will continue, i will continue to be very focussed on making sure that we are doing that while still preserving critical food access. As we know we have a farm safety net and a Family Safety net. We need to make sure theres accountability in both and support for both and as prices go down in farm country but jobs have gone up for families, its really important to note we will see significant savings in snap because things are working as they should. People are going to back to work and needing less assistance with their food. In 2014 we made commonsense reforms to further strengthen the integrity of nutrition assistance. While nutrition programs have an extremely low rate of error and fraud, we addressed rare cases of misuse while protecting benefits and eligibility for those that needed access to the Family Safety net. We also included employment in training pilots to test Innovative Strategies to help snap participantess find stable longterm employment. As well hear today they create Important Community partnerships, rather than focusing on arbitrary tests to push people off of needed Food Assistance, we should focus, as we have, on the types of voluntary partnerships that help families succeed and as i indicated before the good news is this is happening as the economy has improved and people are getting back to work. We certainly want the economy to move faster so everyone has the opportunity for a good paying job but we have seeing savings in the nutrition programs. They are working as intended. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the farm bill is estmeated to save 80 billion more than expected, largely driven by reduced spending on Food Assistance. Looking ahead to the next farm bill well continue to look for ways we can strengthen Health Outcomes in snap through efforts like snap Nutrition Education and the very successful Incentive Program that has often been called double up. Well if had sure oversight at the state and federal level is working as it should. I look forward to hearing from the usda and Inspector Generals office today on the stuff already being taken to the sure accuracy and timing in snap and want to learn more about the ways we can support the work the food and Nutrition Service is doing to strengthen the Quality Control program. And as always i look forward to working with you as we move forward to put together a great farm bill and well continue to fine tune these programs while we are protecting food access for millions of families. Thank you. Acting deputy at Consumer Services within the department. He currently serves as administrator of the food and Nutrition Services as well as undersecretary and Consumer Services at the department as the fns administrator resooeved 15 Nutrition Assistance Programs, including a supplem t Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. He served his chief of staff and the office of chancellor ducken at texas tech university. Home of the ever passing, unsuccessful red raiders. And new trigds policy for thing a rucultural committee for the 2014 farm bill. Welcome, sir and i look forward to your testimony. Mr. Gale harden with the office of Inspector General. Mr. Harden is the assistant Inspector General for the audit of Inspector General. He currently manages all audits at the department and previously has served in a variety of roles at the oig head quarters. He also over saw performance in financialed ed audits for the northwest region. Lastly we have ms. Ann m. Coffee, assistant Inspector General at office of Inspector General. Ann coffee, who also joins us from the department of agriculture office. She has served as the assistant Inspector General since 2015. She began her career at the office of assistant Inspector General and to the department of homeland security. Following her return to the office of Inspector General in 2005 ms. Coffee thread special operations division. Liaison and hotline division. Welcome to you, maam and i look forward to your testimony. Mr. Lipps. Let me start by thanking you for the recognition of secretary perdues leadership. Department wide as we work to p protect agriculture. Im honored to be here today to talk about Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Quality Control system and i am the administrator for the food Nutrition Service. I look forward to insuring those in need efficiently, effectively and with the utmost integrit integrity. Fns programess leverage to insure no american goes hungry. Youve invited me here today to talk about snap Quality Control or qc. Snaps qc system written as the payment error rate. This is a combination of payments that there too high and too low. Quality control is a two tiered systemal of shared responsibility between the states and fns. To insure states have in fact made the correct determination. Typically usda releases an error rate on an annual base, however they both found bias in the data that prevented us from releasing a error rate for fiscal years. They noted rate reductions appeared to to happen too quickly, making us question the integrity of the qt system. That led snap to create errors for the bias. When they found all ailth states we looked at showed problem said in all four categories. They quickly moved to an indepth review of data. The results surprised and greatly concerned our experts. More often states were hiding errors from federal reviewers and in doing so they bypassed our data control until the new indicators were developed. Based on our finding, fns began corrective a to eliminate the bias at late 2014. Fns has made our own policies more robust. We issued memmose and guidance. Provided additional training, developed a new management guide to strengthen our oversight and made new Data Services available. Let me be clear fns is taking strong action to solve them. But the most egregious problems we saw dont result we learned in some states error reduction committees intended to identify errors and prevent them Going Forward, were instead hiding the errors they found from fns. The changes weve made have made those behaviors less likely. Fns has not released National Error rates since 2015 because it was unreliable. I intend to release error rates in 2018. Were committed to improving the integrity of snap as a whole. Well hold ourselves and state partners accountable. Thank you and im happy to answer any questions. 3mr. Harden. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to testify about oigs efforts. With me today is ann coffee, the assistant chief for investigations. My Statement Today will focus on her audit of the snaps process. Throughout audits and investigations, we help improve the general oversight of snap. Over the past three years we have mublished six audit reports and 299 million in monetary findings. Our snap investigations lead to over 2300 arrests, 1600 indictments, 16 hundred 00 convikdss as well a said monetary results. In 2013 oig initiated a audit of snaps qc process. Snap benefits had nearly doubled. Even at low error rate, improper payments still averaged 2 billion annually. We found confidence cannot be placed in the error rate. For example in all eight states private consultants used methods to mitigate errors, rather than report them as errors and a number hired Third Party Consultants who improved the states error rate. They saw dramatic, improvingmentess in error rates depending on the state. We also found other issues with how error rates were calculated. For example state qc reviewers did not correctly calculate. As a result they were incorrectly excluded. And fns did not adequately review case results. They were unsupported questionable or inaccurate. In total we made a recommendations to help them improve the process. As of 2017, fns had closed seven of these investigations. So far this investigation has resulted in two states, virginia and wisconsin, agreeing to pay over 14 million to resolve allegations of snap. The consultant advised the use of several improper and biassed practices, including dropping error cases from review, selectively applying requirements to reduce errors and asking beneficiaries leading questions to eliminate error potenti potential. These practices have reduced the error rate and as a result they were paid performance bonuses for which they were not entitled. This investigation is ongoing. I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to testify and open to any questions you may have. Thank you very much. Let me note we appreciate your statements, mr. Lipps, and mr. Ms. Coffee is here. The integrity of the largest Food Assistance program spends over 70 billion a year is simply unknown. We found the quality review process is broken and in need of reform and we have a number of states being investigated by the department of justice. Mr. Lipps. You stated that the 2014 error rate data raised questions at fns. Once the agency completed its indepth review, did you discover any indication when bias enters the states Quality Control process . Do you have a unfortunately i cant give you an exactancer to that question. We have concern its been in the system for quite some time. The oig notes in its report that the consultant first alcting wih states as early as 2004 when states and visual errorerates started dropping dramatically. So i think theres been some level of bias for over a decade. 2004 . Yes, sir. So we have a problem here that could have started 13 years ago . Thats correct. The fns review for fiscal year 2015 found 42 out of 53 states and territory agencies were improperlied a min straighting the Quality Control process. A document referenced by the media indicated the very preliminary estimates could be between four and 7 . If thats the case, thats almost double the 2014 error rate. Somethings pretty fishy here. That was biassed and would have indicated over 5 billion in error. Do you have any updated estimates for 2015. Unfortunately we do not. The data is so significantly biassed we do not feel we can provide you an accurate measure of that rate. So youre basically saying that the data was unreliable and so therefore could not release the error rate for 2015 or 2016 . Yes, sir. Do you have better data now . We believe well have accurate data with the ability to report a rate. As stated in my testimony entered correct evacuation plans with these states and we believe the bias will be removed significantly and our status titians advise we can get you an accurate rate for 2017. And we have no idea how much taxpayer money was wasted. Yes, sir. I think it goes without saying thats a lot of money. During the 2015 review where states fully cooperative . There was a range on that. Some certainly were. Many were not and there were some egregious practices that oig recognized in their reports. We did have difficulty getting all the information out of the states. Can you describe some of the difficu difficulties for us. For us to be able to perform accurate read reviews, we have to have the entire case file from states. They didnt all want to give us access to their data. Sometimes there are legitimate issues and we need work on those Going Forward but we believe some of the states were intentionally keeping the data from us. We believe some destroyed portions of the data that was part of their review before we came in to review those. Is this an open investigation . Yes, sir. There is an Ongoing Investigation that my colleagues might be able to comment on more thorou thoroughly. I understand the fns did their own reviewed in 2016 while states worked to correct their processes during the 16 case reviews, what level of error did you find . Approximately how much improper payments does not indicate . I would unfortunately give you the same answer that we cant give you an accurate measure. I think as the rate reported in 2014 was 3. 6 sks and weve noted significant bias. Its definitely above 4 but could be higher. I am i recognize just recently came on the board i think it was in june but it is s absolutely imperative if we Work Together to address these issues. Ms. Coffee, let me ask the oig noted the investigation is ongoing. But wisconsin and virginia have settled the department of justice. How many of the 42 states that have had had issues are currently being investigated . Unfortunately since it is an ongoing issue and the states are considered the subjects, i cant commenten the spe multiple. Yes, sir. So it could be all 42, could be 20 . Bigger than a bread box, what are we talking about . I would say thats not all 42. Significant number. Its a significant number, sir. Some of the states have been defrauding the federal government in. Sir, i can tell you it is a unique situation. We have not encountered this previously in my experience prev experience. We need a better edadvocate t well work on that. Did oig look if had to the information on pressure to use information from a consultant . During the course of the investigation i think thats also part of Public Knowledge for the state of virginia. There was allegations that pressure was placed upon the employees toed ed ad here to th methods from the consultant company. However, we dont have jurisdiction to impact employees within the state of virginia. Unless it was a criminal matter and in this case it was an administrative matter handled by the state of virginia. Not too settle. What further actions could occur . S generally speaking if theres a criminal or civil matter, if we are not able to reach a Settlement Agreement then that step typically would be that matter would go to trial, dependant on the nature of the litigation. Because that number states 15, 4, 20. You cant comment on, i understand that. The department of justice would inter into that. Based on your indepth audit, what role do you believe the almost 50 million callers a year in state bonuses played in creating conflicts of interest . Im sorry. That goes to mr. Harding. We think it stems from the two tier process where it states and the federal level are involved. What we found was that process is vulnerable to use due to f l mitigating errors and receiving bonuses. For exceeding the standards. We considered this a very inherent conflict of interest for the states and thats why it led to us making the recommendation to look at that process and see if theres a cost beneficial way to either having fns do it alone or through a third party doing it independently. I would want to recognize we know this is not new necessar y necessarily. It was recommended in 1987 by an outside study that noticed the conflict of interest. So basically it program was incents having bad behavior. Yes and the stuff we heard from state staff, they expressed concern with what consultants were wanting them to do and training them to do. They need to use consultants or else they wouldnt be in line for bonuses and they recognize theyre competing for the bonuses was an inevitable consequence of that. Can you describe what you found in your audit based on the methods otherwise improperly reduce the error rate. Could you expand on that . We found they were used to train them on techniques that would leave them vulnerable. They focussed on how to mitigate the errors, rather than use the errors to improve the process. They also very much encouraged use of error review committees by states to eliminate the errors as opposed to working on solutions to make programs stronger. How did the fns respond to the recman dagarecmanidations . I would say this is probably one of the most sensitives ones in my career and ive been with oig my whole career. We continue to working with the agency as we learned what we were learning. We sit down with the agency and make sure we understood what we were hearing. At the time we issued the report, we did not Reach Agreement but i would like to say since that time we have reached agreement. They reported out they implemented 14 of those recman dashzs and working on the remaining five. So a number of the steps he referred to are inommendations. So when you take up reviewing this as a follow up, youll see how effective those changes were. But there was pushback prior to this latest better rch you had with fns . I would say it included discussions all the way up through the former undersecretary and from my perspective having discussions at that level for any of our majored at work, we need to hear their reviews. We dont always agree. Talk those things out. And decide and proceed on a path forward. And in fiscal year 2013 snap had the highest participation level in the history of the program and had had the loes lowest error rate. Still 2. 4 billion is no small amount of money. Do you find record high participation to be rather unusual with a record low error rate . We were aware the error rate was trending down and from what we learned as we did the audit, it was caused by a number of factors. One of the factors was fns raised the tolerance thresh hold to 25. 50 and which meant that anything below 50 wouldnt be reported. So that contributes to having fewer errors. Also want to note as far as the 2014 Farm Bill Congress established that thresh hold in law. But fns also had policies that simplified things like reporting which caused or which didnt require staff participants to report changes in income as frequently as they had before. So they would not know of different changes because they were not required to report them. Thank you so much for your testimony. I apologize to my colleagues for going over time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. This is a very important, serious issue. And i do want to make it clear this is about state reporting and what they are doing. This is not about individual people committing fraud. This is about what the states are doing in the system and maybe what you as well have found in terms of what theyre doing to manipulate the system. I wonder if you could give us examples of the kinds of things that are counted as errors. I may have to get back to you on specifics because there are 48 Different Things they check. And its income levels, work history. If theyre working. When states were checking work requirements, it wasnt a requirement to check on that and so sometimes they didnt do the extra digging to find out about that. Determine their status in term ofsz veterans or those types of things so how much theyre really digging into and that was part of the problem we saw was that states were following the guidance that fns provided and the guidance fns provided amid recommendations was contrary or different than the regulations. So they were following what was in the handbook but the handbook didnt agree with what the regulations say. And to follow under that the federal reviewers werent fully reviewing. To know whether the benefit amount given was correct. And by the way, ms. Kofy, i understand youre here for the tough questions. Did you want toed a anything as it relates to the type of errors. He is much more the expert as to specifically what theyre checking for but what we noted is there was definitely encouragement on the Third Party Consultants to misrepresent facts to the federal authorities when they were submitting information to fns to lower their payment error rate. Things like stretching their income as expenses and altering documents of that nature. And the state was doing that . Correct. Thank you. Do errors reflect both over payments and underpayments . Yes. So it could be either. When theres an over payment error do, the states when they recoupe the payment, which i nsds they yes, it should. One of the things that we saw was whenever the state reviewers would have identified error, they werent necessarily communicating that back to the case workers or the people that would carry out, pursuing that repayment. So theres an overpayment and the same if there was an underpayment and they corrected that, they should be reporting as an error even though its been corrected. Yes. Okay. S mr. Lipps, usda has issued several memes and undertaken a variety of things, anything else in terms of the steps that have been taken and do you believe that fns will be able to issue a reliable issue rates for the miscall year for 2017. Corrective action plan with 42 states. We have identified where they were entering by in the system. We are following up with the states. Following through on the plans is what gives staff confidence that they will be able to report a rate, and ive asked the question in many different ways i can and im sure we will get you a rate. There are a number of other important factors. I talked to my testimony about how we are not only changing our management model but our training for reviewsers and ensuring the states are doing the same for theirs. We are requiring that any contracts with the thirdparty consultant water to qc reviews, are reviewed by the fns National Office before they move forward to make sure they are not entering into a contract. We want to limit to process work. I also want to say, thank you, congress provided 4 million in 2016 to hire two spray reviewers at federal level. It was not allowing to dig as deeply as we needed to. We looked at internal issue but i appreciate the extra funds provided for ftes and making sure they work e two. System to a single tier system and in looking at that it does raise questions. Would usda need additional staff and resources to be able to move to a single tier system . We will report back to you as soon as we get that information from them. At this point given whats happening in the focus and the needed focus on all of do you feel that additional legislation is needed to fix this, or are we talking about Additional Resources to support what the department is currently doing . As we talked about weve made significant internal changes and we believe that will get us to a corrected and rick. We want to be careful in future we dont end up back in this place and we want to work withth you on any ideas that you may have with regard to legislation to make sure this doesnt happen in the future whether that regards for resources or a change in how this process works. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator ernst. Thank you, mr. Chair, and thanks to our witnesses here today. Witnesses here today and mr. Lipps, id like to start with you, please. The usda administer as handful of the over 80 different federal programs designed to serve low income americans and according to the gao theyre too fragmented and overly complex for clients to navigate. For Program Managers to assess rogram performance. What steps is the usda taking to make it safety net more cohesive . Senator, we havent taken significant steps since my arrival but i insure you we intend to do so, both within the 15 programs and outside of those. With regard to what the reviewers have to look at, application for the program is akin to filing a tax return. We have to look at income, deductions and expenses. Its a very difficult process and were always looking at ways to insure those eligible have process while insuring integrity in the program. I think allowing programs to work across on that. There are other agencies that have access to data we dont have at fns that can be helpful in that. So we hope to be working with you in resolving those in the future. I hope so. Its a complicated area and i think by linking many of our agencies together and nesting their skills and abilities together, not only can we better assist the americans that need these support systems, but also stop some of the fraud that might exist out there. So i would just encourage you to continue working with other agencies in those areas and improve that coordination, despite over 80 programs and billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, the federal government often times fails to address the barriers to self sufficiency by those that are currently living in poverty and i a plug for one of my bills. Earlier this year i introduce the empowers act and thad would allow states to integrate Pilot Programs to better address the challenges faced by low income families and individuals. But that does require a lot of these agencies working together to find a better way forward. So were always looking for efficiencies and ways to prevent fraud and abuse within the system. Mr. Harden, snap is one of the largest benefit programs for those in need and the oig findings are very, very concerning. I think youve heard that over and over again from this panel. What specifically can we do as congress, especially with the farm bill coming up . Are there ways we can address these type of system through any legislation . Beyond rules that might be able to address it in the agencies . We will continue to have conversations as we go through this. But as a result of our work, we didnt see the need for any necessary legislative change. We do, as an oig, if we see the need for legislative change, we make those recman dagdss and have them work through their process. But we also make sure we advise commities weve made those recommendations too. I appreciate and i thank you, mr. Chair, for racing this to our attention at this level. Thank you for the proper oversight necessary for the program to be successful and with that, mr. Chair, ill yield bo back my time senator thank you, mr. Chairman. Sorry. Senator casey. I apapologize. Thanks very much. I want to start with the value of the snap program in a state like pennsylvania, big diverse state with a lot of economic challengess. For example in our state snap helping 1 in 12 workers in the state put food on the table. That means roughly more than 507 thousand 600 pennsylvania workers live in houseled hads that participated in snap in the past year. I spent 10 years in pennsylvania, ailg th as a stat auditor general, which meant i was, on a daily basis, kicking the hell out of state programs that were in some cases wasting taxpayer dollaress. So we have an enduring obligation to make sure every Program Measures up to the expectations of taxpayers. Thats why this hearing was so important. At the same time i think there are some folks in washington that use examples of over payment or abuse to take a ax to the program and just hack away at them while allowing other programs to be programs to be sacrosanct from that kind of accountability. My question involves what can we do to make sure what im told is a payment error rate for fiscal year, guess is the most recent fiscal error rate for 2014, is that correct . Yes, sir. Thats 3. 66 . Is that right . Yes, sir. With that number in front of us, weve got to make sure were bringing that number down even more. I rales states because theyre dealing with a socalled qc program may not measure error rates fairly or consistently. We have to make sure were holding them accountable. I direct this to you. What actions can we make to make sure your systems drive meaningful improvement opposed to just improving the measure . Senator, i think theres a lot of different sides to that. I think improving the qc rate is important as delivering to the recipients. We talk about the money castes inferior taxpayer is important. Qc rate is zero, youre delivering the payment every recipient deserves, what this question is. The lower we get to zero the better job were doing to ensure each recipient is getting the money you intended them to have. How do you think we arrive at that point . Whats the best way to get there . I think we always work for a lower rate. The things fns is taking action on to ensure we get there, its partnership between the fed and the states and we constantly have to work on this issue. There are a lot of state options and the significance of states being involved in this process so they know theirs as well. We want to make sure each state has the ability to adapt that to best serve their citizens. The last question i have is regard to the bonus and penalty system. A report among other things reports both bonus and penalty contributed to the problem. Do you think theres a need to reevaluate that or reevaluate both . Theres been a lot of discussion to that issue and we look forward to engaging you on that. States have said both of those influenced their actions in this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Senator boozman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Floor that would strike the state bonuses for lower their rates of money used to encourage the states to do something that they ought to be doing anyway and would reinvest those into the emergency Food Assistance i program. To b as the oig report shows, these bonuses obviously created an incentive for states to submit false error rates to fns. Ows, mr. Harden, do you thinkn congress should do away with the bonuses . In terms of us looking at the program, i dont want to say what the policy should be because thats not the auditors role. We did note that was a big part of the comfort of interest at states when youre looking at themselves and trying, they use to consultants and the new ethic at lower error rates, they would be Getting Better bonuses and so it did incentivizes them to get the error rates lower in a variety of ways. Ter bonuses andt did incentivize them to get the error rates low ir in a number of ways. Thats a nice way of saying there is a significant problem there . Yes, sir. Mr. Hardin, as you stated in your testimony, rig made 19 recommendations intended to assist fns on their Quality Control program. Would you summarize those recommendations . Do any carry any weight more than others and if so, has fns addressed them to the satisfaction . Of those closed out, what has the delay . I know thats a lot. I think the most rig cant recommendation we had in the report is the first one that talks about looking into the cost benefit whether we should move away from the two tier system. Fns is acting on that right now and have a request for proposal out and comments and are looking at that. A twotier process can work but it has to be managed the right way as mr. Lipps said. And were looking at that. Others we have implemented making sure theres guidance out there if youre going to use consultants, there wasnt guidance before. Clarifying guidance for qc workers clarifying their qc reviews and making sure they have the right type of federal oversight making sure they ask the proper questions. Theres only five that are continuing to be open and havent reported back to the department they have implemented. I think the one that will take the longest is the two tier process expected to be put in place by next year. We would then follow up as an agency usually after an agency has had a chance to implement the recommendations say 18 to 24 months afterwards. We would definitely be looking at this in the 2021 audit cycling. Whats this timeline to get the five closed out . I dont have exact dates on those, senator. I think were very close on each of them. We have worked with oig to move forward. Obviously on the question of the one tier system we have let that contract and it will take time to do the analysis and get back. It will be at least a year on that issue. What do you see as the Biggest Challenges facing fns as you make challenges to make recommendation and improve the accuracy of the s. N. A. P. Error rate . I think that states are good partners and working for a valid qc rate. The work of oig has encouraged them to do so sand we wilton be good partners with them. What i want to commit to you within the agency we rereview our qc regularly so we dont end up in this situation combine. Thanks, mr. Chairman and thanks to the panel. This situation again. Senator gillibrand. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im very grateful were holding this hearing. I know everyone on this committee is very determined to fight poverty in our country and we all know s. N. A. P. Is one of our most effective tools to do that. It can lift families out of poverty and drive down healthcare costs and improve childrens help and help children stay focused in school and improve the lives of most vulnerable citizens. The data is clear it gives lowest income americans the nutrition they need and helps small towns and Rural Communities. Even as s. N. A. P. Participation drops we have to remind ourselves there are millions who dont make enough to buy the food they need and rely on s. N. A. P. I want to thank those who gave their testimony to make s. N. A. P. Work more efficiently. Considering the s. N. A. P. Standard deduction many raised about Quality Control in this hearing are about how different state agencies conduct their client reviews of paperwork. I recently introduced the s. N. A. P. Standard deduction act for 2017 and would standardize for individuals with high medical costs would more uniform deductions help make its easier to verify . Any of you . Senator, we look forward to working with you on that. Certainly standardizing it makes the process easier. We working for the balance to make sure folks get the right amounts they need when we standardize those things and happy to visit with you further about that. I would tend to agree, if it can be standardized its usually helpful and in the consistently implemented. Any thoughts, miss coffee . I would defer to my colleagues, standardization is helpful to us in investigations. Mr. Lipps we are reading how s. N. A. P. Participation rates are dropping as the economy recovers. In new york its 2 . In Rural Counties its 16 3 higher than cities. Rothd r what steps is fns doing and what steps for those who have transportation issues can submit their paperwork. One of the great things is it allows them the flexibility to serve states. Some are overwhelmingly rural and combination of both and we look to the state agencies to make sure theyre serving those populations and in our technical guidance and overview with them we want to make sure everybody is getting served. Just to clarify, some of our earlier testimony, one of my earlier colleagues says this is instance of fraud. I dont understand this is fraud concerns. Is this an incidence of fraud or mismanagement . The investigations is the agreements were put in place to settle claims of false claims act. Yes. That is a deliberate act on the part of the states to provide information we would consider fraudulent. Did you file a case against various states for fraud . There were two Settlement Agreements we worked with the department of justice on. For our purposes when ever we have an allegation within the Inspector Generals office on my side, were obligated to go to the attorney general as part of the ag act. We did and, yes, Settlement Claims you see were not criminal but civil matters taken up by the department of justice. Can you tell us what states . There are two public but because this is still ongoing. The two public are wisconsin and virginia Settlement Agreements. I cannot comment on others still in process at this time. Can you describe for the two that are public why you believe it was an intentional fraud . I think based upon the information that was submitted to fns as well as we do a lot of work, the complaint came in from a state employee concerned about how the materials were being provided to fns. All those factors determine to a determination whether there may be fraud present. Thank you, mr. Chairman and for this hearing. I think it its important that instead of waiting for reauthorizing of the farm bill we talk about this instead of just about strategies and techniques. I want to get back to senator gillibrands line of questioning, fraud. If the headline is the Inspector General finds fraud in the s. N. A. P. Program people will automatically assume that was widespread fraud by applicants. If we can just clarify what were talking about and what the be schairtable and say the misunderstandings were with the state, i think it would be really important we make sure we understand what were talking about here. Miss coffey. From the perspective of the states, typically what we see in many of the overpayment or payment error rate its administrative errors or mistakes that have been made. Thats really the majority of what you see within the program. However, in this particular instance, its clear theres a pattern thats been established utilizing Third Party Consultants to basically look to change information that normally states would be reporting to fns. That information has either been withheld in some circumstances or altered in some fashion or guidance given out to state employees to not follow up on certain pieces of information. Thats very different, i think, in terms of what you see typically with payment error rates. This is a really overt act on the part of the consultants and the states that obviously we have identified thus far. There is a distinction there. But its fraud in establishing the review process or its fraud in putting more people on the program, on the s. N. A. P. Program who are unworthy or we dont know whether they were unworthy or not . Its basically we cant say because the information was not accurately followed up upon. I want to clarify what were talking about when we talk about fraud and mismanagement is at a state level where theyre administering this program, this is not to imply there is widespread applicant fraud, where the applicant maybe somebody said, i think this person probably has 1099 income that wasnt reported, no followup on the 1099 income that wasnt reported, you dont know whether thats true or not because the states havent taken the steps they should have taken to do the investigation and in fact allegedly covered up the missteps that they had in terms of administrating the program. Is that fair characterization what were talking about . Yes, it is. Okay. I want to make sure that we take very seriously this program. Access to this program is essential. Its essential for people who live below the poverty line, its essential for seniors and essential for our recovering and veterans who are coming back who are struggling with the transition back into civilian life. So we dont want a headline coming out of this saying, theres widespread fraud. Its really unfortunate that the states have not followed the proper procedure. Ill bet if we had them in here they might argue that they did and they want to put this behind us and that there wasnt a problem. The fact that the department of justice has chosen to not take this criminal, i think, is an indication we need to ratchet down the rhetoric on how we look at this. Do you think thats a fair characterization . I believe it is. Thats part of the reason we dont talk about the states currently under review in the investigation because we dont want to unfairly accuse anyone or anything at this point. I would argue the federal administration of these programs, not the Inspector General, but the federal administration of the program not setting broad guidelines, not auditing and appropriately overseeing the state administration of these programs has led i see mr. Harden is nodding his head has led to the confusion and led to this problem. I think there is opportunity for criticism all around. Is that a fair characterization . Mr. Harden . Yes, it is. Mr. Lipps, i know youre knew to this business, i new to this business i hope youre taking it all in. It will not be okay with me for somebody who worked with federal programs and might have gotten dinged on an audit, cant remember if i did or not. Its really important we not throw out the baby with the bath water and not have a wide statement there was fraud, waste and abuse in the snap program and we be more directive and look at Solutions Like senator gillibrands bill. I look forward to working with the committee. Thank you for the extra 25 seconds senator boozman didnt use up. Thank you, senator boozman for those 30 seconds. Any time, senator. Any time. I would say there are disturbing things about fraud with the people involved and states involved and integrity of the largest Food Assistance program that expands over 70 billion a year is unknown. Not acceptable. The inspector we have a number of states that have defrauded the federal government and are being investigated by the department of justice for gaming the system. Senator boozman had an amendment that would have taken care of that, to some degree. But in determining how many,ou its an open investigation. Ms. Coffey is correct in stating that and only that, but we dony know, we know of two, but there are 42. Thats no small number in terms of people who are gaming the system. The people are gaming the system are the states who are gaming the system. There are people in charge of that. And now we hearing primary well, theres consultants and maybe the states get together and figured out how to do that. And maybe somebody in the department knew that, maybe they didnt. I think thats to be determinede but this is a very serious problem and i dont think it should be understated. Mr. Chairman, if i might just jump in here with you as well to just agree that this is a very serious problem. But to underscore what senator heitkamp and senator jello brand were really addressing on this. Because in my line of question you indicated theres anp overpayment, corrected, its still an error. D theres an underpayment corrected, its still an arabic what we have our states who want to give bonuses, who have not been reported as the should be reporting, and so we know that corrections are made on underpayments, overpayment scam of the kind of things. We need to do a better dive,undp deep dive, the usda needs that o staff together to do that and do what oig is recommending, but i agree with you. Weve got to look at the bonuses and incentives, and if the incentives are creating iftuation, we are not getting accurate reporting on ayers and whats been corrected and so on, and thats a big problem. And so thank you. Reporting on d whats being corrected, that a big problem. I would make an appointment before we get to the second panel, an improper payment rate, thats improper payment rate, money that should not have been spent. 2009 of that rate of a percent was 4. 36, thats about 2. 2 billion. 2010, 3. 81, about 2. 5 billion. 2011, 3. 8, about 2. 7 billion, 12, 3. 42, 2. 5 billion. 213, 2. 4 billion and 2014, 2. 5 billion and for some reason we dont have any numbers from 2015 and 2016 because the method of determining the error rate was very questionable. But if its 2 about 1. 4 billion for 70 billion. 5 , 3. 5 billion, if some of the states would have a 10 error that may or may not be true, probably not. Thats 7 billion. 15 , im not going to go there ill say it anyway, 10. 5 billion. This is a major problem over the life of a farm bill, six years, five years, were talking an awful lot of money. Thats not acceptable. Thats the gentlest way i can put that. Lets go to panel two, please. Thank you, panel one. I appreciate your testimony. Welcome the second panel. Witnesses, first we have mr. Sham safer, the center for Employment Opportunities. Mr. Schaeffer is executive director and chief executive officer for the Employment Opportunities in new york. Since 200 2009 is working to exd Employment Services provided bys ceo to 18 cities, oklahoma, colorado, ohio, pennsylvania, and new york. Mr. Schaeffer previously served as the director of Economic Development for senator schumer. Welcome. I look forward to your direc testimony. Next we have mr. Bryan parker, of the Community Food bank of eastern oklahoma. Mr. Parker joins us today froma. Tulsa. On behalf of the Community Food bank of eastern oklahoma, is currently enrolled in the taylor Culinary Trade Program which provides training and professional skills for the Restaurant Industry. E previously mr. Parker served in the navy on the uss midway. Thank you for your service. Simplify for all the marines you help. And ran a Small Business in japan for more than 20 years. Nd thank you for being here today and i look forward it to your testimony. Mr. Jimmy wright of wrights markets, i would like to welcome the witness from alabama. Mr. Jimmy wright, i know the senator from alabama ise extremely proud of the great work that you are doing and alabama w were all excited to hear from you today. Mr. Wright is the owner and president of wrights markets. Under his leadership the store expand from a Small Convenience store to a 22,000 square foot supermarket mr. Wright is an active member of his Community Serving as president of the Community Development corporation on the board of ease alabama food bank. Welcome. I look forward to hearing your perspective fourth witness is dr. Diane schanzenbach. Shes our fourth witness. She is the director of the institute for policy research at northwestern university, and e im sorry you are going to introducer. Northwestern university i am sorry. Youre to introduce her. Thats totally fine. Mr. Chairman, whatever you would like to do is totally fine. Go ahead, i apologize. It only took two taps on the shoulder for me to understand you were going to no, no, either way is fine. Dr. Diane, you are so important, both of us are introducing you. Were very pleased you are here director for the institute of policy research and market Walker Alexander professor in the school of education social policy at northwestern university. You deserve the award for the longest title of anyone we will have in front of us today from evanston, illinois also Research Associate for the National Bureau of economic research. In this role she studies policy aimed to improve lives and poverty of children with the influence of snap and Early Childhood education on childrens long term outcomes. She was formerly the director of the amount project at the Brookings Institute and received her ph. D. In economics from princeton university. Welcome. We have one more person. I understand that. Ive got this. Im going to recognize senator strange with regards to mr. Wright. I know you want to have an opportunity to Say Something in his behalf, sir. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I apologize for being late. Have you had a chance to introduce him . Ive already introduced him and can certainly add to it. Im glad to add to it. Its a rare opportunity to introduce not only a fellow alabamian and friend to this panel. What he is doing is cutting edge. It will benefit a lot of people and ive been to wrights supermarket, i know it well, creative way to serve a pop laigts that desperately needs to be served. Im glad jimmie is my friend. When i was attorney general i had the opportunity to encourage our food banks with a challenge to lawyers across our state i think has been particularly effective restocking them during the summer months. Its a team effort. Jimmie, im glad youre here, look forward to your testimony. Thank you, senator. My last wednesday is mr. Brian rendo. Did i get that right . Close. Senator mcconnell has to introduce you, sir but he cannot attend at this particular time. You have served as the director of Care Food Bank and overseen the delivery of over 19 million meals per year. Previously you were the Vice President of the government and Community Affairs for yum brands as well as legislative assistant for senator mcconnell for six years. Thank you for being here today. I look forward to your input. Lets start it off with mr. Schaeffer. Chairman roberts, Ranking Member stabenow and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in this program in the lives of millions of america. I am director of a nonprofit that will provide Employment Services for roughly 5,000 men and women released from incarceration. In ohio, new york, pennsylvania, individuals come to ceo sometimes just days after being released from prison. Although half have never had a job they are all eager to work, eager to support themselves and their families. 41 of ceo participants report that since exiting prison they have run out of food and lack the resources to secure more. Meet tomas kabon. He served 16 years for a crime he is deeply remorseful and took advantage of every opportunity in prison and earning a degree in social studies. And the day after he signed up for snap benefits and he wasnt comfortable taking what he calls food stamps but he would have gone hungry otherwise. He spend two months at ceo showing up everyday for a basic job and showing team work and punctuality. He wanted to be here today and the reason he couldnt come and we couldnt get the smile on this photo off his face he is preparing to start his a first job in 17 years working as a client advocate in a homeless shelter in brooklyn. He is relieved and proud. He has a way to support himself and his time on snap is ending and he has a job he can get back. We support many people through this program. As a Third Party Company ceo will match every federal dollar representing 2 million and significant leveraging of resources. It has been proven to work through randomized control panel and we are one of many programs to use ent help men and women on snap to get security. I would like to highlight the following for the committee. First, i urge the continued funding of the snap ent program addressing food and security employment through a single Government Intervention is aligned with what we know about hunger and poverty. Hungry people are incapable focusing on the things we ask them. Showing up and making a career plan and showing up on time. Even motivated individuals cannot focus when their mind is on when they will next week. Flexibility has been a hallmark from inception. It allows states to provide initiative responsive to local needs. That said it must balance is on a rigorous data collection. Based on the previous farm bill the committee should authorize an additional 100 million for states that adopt activities proven to work through rigorous evaluation. We should build a collection of ent specific best practices to scale across the country. Finally reconsider the three month limit to barriers to employment such as formerly incarcerated. Men and women on parole have obligations like mandatory drug treatment and parole checkin that make it difficult to make those threshholds. Waivers should be applied for those who have severe difficulty entering the labor market. Snap is a key to the survival of people and their prosperity and communities. Without snap any other opportunities and keeping the Community Safe and supporting Strong Families become harder if not impossible. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony and that excellent presentation in regards to that individual that has now is now a working part of our society. That is very helpful. Thank you for allowing me to testify today. My name is brian parker. Im a 51yearold father of two, native of tulsa, oklahoma and the recipient of food stamps, sorry, snap benefits. Im also a veteran and served on board the uss midway from 1985 to 1988 and then lived in japan the next 20 years as the owner of a small chain of english schools. I was also a physical fitness trainer for mma fighters and professional wrestlers. 2010 i moved back to tulsa to be with family and friends here. I left behind my two daughters who are both successful, my oldest being an architectural engineer and my youngest a chef. Both quite successful moving forward with their lives as adults. Ive been in the Restaurant Industry myself my entire life. I held every position from dishwasher to general manager and still take great pride being able to step into any one of those positions any given time to help my career through a crunch. Always been hard worker and i believe in it. I always felt accomplish and successful. I never worried about paying a bill or buying food or wondering where i would get the next meal. That was a thought that never crossed my mind. Like many people do i lost my job. This happened two or three years ago. Its rough. I felt down on my luck, depression, i battled anxiety and everyday it seemed to grow a little bit stronger. You lose hope after a while. Everyday that goes by without landing a job, it gets rougher. While trying to find work, i had to find ways to cut spending. It wasnt too long before i would no longer before i could no longer afford keep my car or home or anything else with that matter. With each interview that went without the promise of a new job the struggles just kept becoming more and more complicated. When it seemed nobody was willing to give an opportunity to man, its tough when youre 51 years old for anybody. When youre looking for work its daunting. When you find yourself trying to land these jobs when youre working out of a cheap midtown motel it gets even more difficult. Snap, during this time, was a life saver. It provided nutrition and gave me a lot of hope. A man can endure a lot of pain and suffering but one thing almost impossible to ignore is hunger. Excuse me. Its hard to live up to your responsibilities as a provider when youre not providing. Im very thankful for the snap program and for the snap benefits i received while trying to get back on my feet. Im happy to say someones finally decided to give me a Second Chance. Im currently enrolled in the Community Food bank eastern oklahomas Culinary Trade Program and over halfway finished with the 16 week course. The Culinary Trade Program is free to qualified participants and helps people needing a Second Chance in life. Im currently working there five days a week at least seven hours a day. The Program Teaches professional Cooking Skills and life skills. The executive chef, jeff marlo, likes to remind us of his a. A. And e. That stands for motto, attitude, attendance and effort. He likes to tell us these are the keys to life. When i graduate from the Culinary Trade Program, i will upon successful completion of the program and final examination ill leave the course with food handlers managers certificate and a set of chef knifes and some little perks. This certification is also transferable anywhere in the united states. Its a good program and its a program that helped put me in a position i can land any position i want in the food industry. Ultimately id like to get my own food truck and further down the line move that into a brick and mortar scenario with larger atmosphere. At the completion of the course ill find myself in almost any professional kitchen id like to work in. With hard work and really hard work and training and passion for cooking and my dream of owning my own business will become a reality. None of this would have been possible without the help of the snap program and Culinary Trade Program. I see how important everyday snap is to many lives in the community. Everyone needs to eat, not just the employed or the wealthy or middle class, Everyone Needs food. And food provides the fuel and strength that we need. Snap helps those in need one step closer to selfsufficiency. Most dont consider uncer to be an obstacle. Its hard to unless youve been there. If it werent for snap i would probably be homeless. Thats not easy to say. Im a proud man. Unless youve been there, you wouldnt understand. All you can do is focus on when you might eat again or how youre going to come up with the 40 bucks it takes to stay in a cheap motel one more night. This is why snap is important to me and those that need it. Any working class individual is one life altering change or bad event away from being in the same situation. One of day i want to pay it forward and hopefully im doing that right now. Thank you for allowing me to tell my story today. Im blessed and fortunate to be here. Thank you. Brian, from a marine to a navy veteran, i thank you for your service, well done. Thank you, sir. Mr. Wright. Good morning, chairman roberts. Ranking member stabenow and distinguished members of the agricultural committee. My name is Jimmie Wright and owner of wrights market in palatka, alabama, it is an honor and privilege to testify before you today and testi sector of supermarket industry. Wrights markets is a small family owned fullservice supermarket. With accepted snap is a form of tender essentially since the store open and we understand thv needs of these customers extremely well including many who are elderly. Understand the needs of these customers extremely well including many who are elderly. We began a Shuttle Service three years ago caught wright to you for customers who were unable to get to the store for lack of transportation. We expanded this last august and launched a delivery option. Ive been very pleased with the success of this service. Im greatful it gave us an opportunity for this and confident we can operate this officially for the snap customers. Weve been willing to take the risk by investing time and capital and still wait going for the green light for the usda. The supermarket is changing and we need the government to keep up to pace with our ambitions. When the usa transitions from paper vouchers to ebt cards our customers benefitted and stores with efficiency. Implementing this pilot will be the right step much like the ebt transition. One example of what it can bring, were planning to leverage our snap customers to other service. For example i am working on a program with East Alabama Medical Center to put physician assistants or rns on our delivery vehicles to provide basic medical checkups or care and many live in rural areas and lack access to medical care and wind up in er with chronic medical issues. As they discover other ways for medical nutrition programs i suggest you start with a federal regulatory climate for supermarkets. We understand theres a desire for some lawmakers to restrict food choices for snapple recipients. While we support the goal of promoting healthier eating the implementation of such an idea would be unworkable for the supermarket community. The burden may put some grocers out of business and therefore make Food Security worse. Instead of federal mandates we believe programs such as fini and hssi and snap ed have proven to be effective in Health Access and incentivizing the purchases and we support their reauthorizing in the next farm bill. I also recommend a more efficient process for approval of snap applications. For small retailers in Good Standing with the program. We appreciate the effort made for making it more efficient for larger store groups and encourage it to other retailers in Good Standing. Not long ago i helped a nonprofit open a store in carver. It took nearly three months to get the snap license approval from usda. It is frustrating and we appreciate any potential improvements to the process. The snap program, in my opinion, is one of the most important and official programs our nation offers and our business creates jobs and our Community Helps those in need. Nga commenced usga and the team at fns for their tireless work to respond to the back to back disasters caused by hurricanes harvey and irma and it has been in communication with the retailers and state agencies. We appreciate the hard work that has been done and continues to be done by the fns staff. Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions. Doctor. Thank you, chairman roberts and Ranking Member stabenow and members of the committee. Thanks for the opportunity to appear before you today. Im the director of the institute for policy research and professor at northwestern university. Snap is a highly efficient and effective program. It kept 8. 4 Million People out of poverty in 2014 including almost 4 million children. Its sufficiently targeted to families that need the benefits the most and reduces the likelihood they have trouble affording food and is a stabilizer in economic down turns. The key reason for its success is it relies the private sector for food and other outlets. The reliance has been a critical future of snap since the beginning. It serves a diverse caseload. The overwhelming majority of those who participate, nearly 80 or children, elderly or working adults. It has consistently declined over the past two decades. No evidence snap has a sizable impact on employment rates. Snap benefits the wider economy by providing an effective stimulus during difficult economic time snms by design, it can quickly adapt to economic down turns. As more households become eligible do to job loss they can be quickly enrolled along with need. The payments increased in the wake of the Great Recession but falling since their peek at the end of 2012 with the congressional Biggest Office predicting further declines in coming years in response to the recovering economy. It provides stimulus to the local economy including retail, wholesale and Transportation Systems that differ the foods purchase. Every 5 in snap benefits generates 9 in economic activity. Allen blinder and mark zandi have found congresss authorizationization of the temporary increase during the Great Depression had a larger stimulus impact than any other spending increase or tax policy. One of its greatest strengths, blocking granting would fundamentally undermine its stabilizing impact on the macro economy. Snap also allows families to buy nutritious foods they could not otherwise afford. Recent research i conducted shows snap is a good investment that has Lasting Impact on children. Those who had access to the program during childhood were 18 Percentage Points more likely to graduate during high school and grew up healthier and women more likely to grow up to selfsufficient adults. Snap is not a welfare but an investment in children. In terms of essential reforms to snap, it would be more effective if better aligned with familys needs. Evidence suggests modest increase in snap benefits would improve dietary quality. It could adapt marketbased policy tones courage consumers to consume a healthier diet. Rebates for purchase of Healthy Foods or bonus dollars at farmers markets and Grocery Stores would help with the benefits. And for cross enrollment of eligible snap participants intowick similar to the match program. And it would help this group. Strengthening snap is a smart Public Investment that would help mcand economic growth. Thank you and i look forward to answering any questions that you have. Thank you, doctor. Chairman roberts and Ranking Members of the committee. Im here as director of the food bank in louisville, kentucky. Im honored to represent not only my food bank but Americas Network of 200 food banks that serve more than 246 Million People in need. America is a country where everyone has enough to eat at all times to live an active and healthy life. Dear to care is in counties of kentucky through indiana and expands more than 4,000 square miles and suburban and urban and Rural Counties. You need sound data. Ive submitted extensive written testimony that hopefully supplies some of that. In my remarks id like to provide two testimonials to provide context. After all behind each data is a person. Please meet ray a client in kentucky who receives tfat. He said im a veteran and diagnosed with stage 4 cancer unable to work and had a sick wife and sister to care for. My local food bank signed me up and we have enough to eat. I cannot begin to thank those who made this program possible. Second, meet sara, director of one of our partner agencies. In saras words at our food pantry we have regular volunteers who get to hear the stories of the clients they serve and heard the woman so grateful for her box because she had to pay extra for medicine that month. They know the grandparents raising their family without assistance and one family didnt leave the parking lot after getting their box, they ate it immediately in the car. It helps us stabilize our familys lives. Throughout this process, lets remember they are real people whose lives may be impacted by decisions we make here. Last year, dear to care distributed 19 million meals to 400,000 struggling individuals, including 7. 2 Million Pounds of Fresh Produce and 4. 7 Million Pounds of tfap product. It represents 70 of the food we distribute. We contribute tfap with food donated and food purchased to meet the foods we receive in kentucky. The highly Nutrition Products we receive greatly increased our overall nutritional mix of our food, contributing to the health of our clients. It is particularly important among federal nutrition programs, because nearly 50 of neighbors have incomes too high to care for snap. The food is often all thats available to offset hunger. Yes, unemployment is down but food unavailability is exceptionally high and i urge all the programs to consider tfap on the bill. And the Kentucky Farm food bank program, this initiative increases access to strong food by kentuckians and produce that is fresh and edible but not saleable because of the policies. The state Kentucky Food Bank helps farmers to pack and package their food. Through the commissioner ryan quarles, this program provided support to farmers and feeds the hungry. I would urge the committee to consider scaling it nationwide. In conclusion i firmly believe hunger is solvable. My food Bank Colleagues and i are dedicated to the task and will continue to Work Together with you and private stakeholders to contribute to a hungerfree america. Thank you and i look forward to your questions. Our thanks to panel two for taking the time to join us today and share your insight. Mr. Schaeffer, leading up to snap is the concept of work, unfortunately we dont have the last pilots and the question is how best to facilitate snaps participants return to selfsufficiency. Your testimony ref reynolds a personal case and made several recommendations to improve employment and training authorities. Conversely, what pitfalls should the committee avoid . Thank you, mr. Chairman. While there certainly are pitfalls for the committee and next farm bill to avoid i would emphasize this committee in particular has positioned the work requirements under staff very well, i would further add that usdas investments and staff skills are giving right Technical Assistance to states and also third party partners. I think were on good footing, certainly as we build this Operational Base and i think theres three pitfalls i think we should be mindful of. The per diem programs theres not a one size fits all model. The recipients of snap benefits, and snap programs represent diverse individuals, such as those coming home from prison. We need to be mindful, theres a different set of job and training would be more appropriate. Some would need less intensive activities and more insensitive. And funneling around through, we need the right program for the right person. I would further emphasize that for some it would be the first job. Keeping that job can be just as hard. It allows intensive investment for people to earn greater skills to move up, up the economic ladder. Its a key point and finally, you know, the snap program, the 507 Million Dollars spent as part of the ent portion, 200 million. 299 million to be specific comes from a match program in which state, philanthropy donors help leverage federal dollars and i think that represents a tremendous leveraging ability, i would be mindful that certain communities and certain Third Party Providers across the country might not have the same access to the economic needs. The pitfall to avoid, that everybody takes part in this program. Thank you for that. Mr. Parker. Thank you for your service to this country. What made you decide to enroll in the Culinary Trade Program . Thanks, mr. Chairman. It was easy, with a passion for food, i think my mom had something to do with that. She taught me how to scramble an egg, but it started as a child and continued through my adult life and something i just love to do. And this particular course came to me through my participation with barricks program and they pointed out to me and got me sent in the right direction and i had an opportunity to work with a great team of chefs. Its going thats worth paying for and im fortunate enough to be able to go there and i get a stipend for going there, theyre almost paying me. So this opportunity to go there and learn from great chefs and you dont pass up. As you continue your success with your food truck is tulsa. What do you offer folks . At the food bank we offer a quality product on a daily basis. I didnt anticipate walking into seeing a walkin full of high volume proteins. Weve got ribeye steaks, everything you want and it goes out to people who need it so weve got Quality Ingredients and we put it out on a daily basis with pride and thats it means a lot to me. I thought i would be walking into a bunch of flour and sugar and dried goods and thats not the case at all. Its a pleasure to be there and im learning from a lot. The question i have for you, sir, you said you had ambition to get your own food truck. Yes, sir. I want to know what youre going to serve the good folks in tulsa. Oh, thats pretty good. All right. Well, yes, anywhere from burgers to tacos, i have to wait to get there to figure it out, but thinking about probably burgers or tacos. And youre more than welcome, mr. Chairman. It would be bryan, maybe bryans burgers. Thats what were going with. He offer that at no cost. Thank you. Mr. Ryan, Rural Communities, your store faces a lot of challenges relative to the supply chain or serving the customer base. The staff authorized me to enter was you indicated in your statement plus comply with additional rules and regs that add a layer of Administrative Burden to say the least and i share your concern that someone could create additional burdens under the guise of the the wellintended guise promoting nutrition by promoting what people should eat and forcing cashiers to be food police, are there any other regulatory burdens we should avoid . Mr. Chairman, thank you. I think thats certainly a concern for our industry and how we would handle that. Again, back to my testimony, just the ability if we decide to grow, and in Good Standing with the usda that we had d be able to obtain a license and move quickly on that and we would ask that a fast track would be set up for retailers in Good Standing and also, people who are committed to serve the food deserts of america. Those would really help us in again, our big concern that we see looming out there is the food choice and any other things that would have to do with the processing of the program that would add cost to it would unfortunately have us pass those costs onto the buying customer and thus the buying power they have. You mentioned the public support to your food banks operation, but you depend on private support as well. Can you give us how much of your food are receive versus private donations. About 17 the food we receive comes from the tfab program and receive from donations, natural retailers, local retailers and increasingly we find ourselves purchasing more food. Today almost 10 of the food we acquire is purchased food. I understand you expense something to your own fund for storage and distribution of tfab commodities. Can you give me those costs that those kfr and what percent you have to chip in . Absolutely. Thats a great question. So, the tfab storage and rebim yoursment covered about 23 of the cost of the dare to Care Food Bank to acquire, store and distribute tfab products. Its not covering the majority of those costs and frankly, you know, we would love to discuss or love to see the committee consider increasing storage and distribution allocations, it would free up funding that we could then allocate toward other program and feeding, acquiring healthy nutritious food and feeding more people. Well, we would both all of us on the committee would like to encourage that at the national level. Point out what you hear time and time and time again. That we have some very tough spending decisions as we head into this farm bill. Are there aspects of the farm to food bank that are low or no cost . Well, let me say, first of all, i certainly understand and sympathize with the tough challenges casing you facing you and the committee. The on the farm to food, i would love the opportunity to sit with your staff and talk about that program and how it might be leveraged at the federal level. I know in kentucky its jointly held program and the taxpayers have an opportunity to donate a portion of their return on the tax checkoff and theres private sector funding. So, most aspects of the program do require a cost and in it kentucky we found a wonderful private Public Partnership that works and would love to see if that could be replicated here. Senator stabenow. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman and thank you to each of you for the excellent panel and i first want to say to mr. Parker, thank you for paying it forward on behalf of a lot of people that wouldnt be here today and talking about how important it is to that our country has your back and someone has some need for the system. Thank you. And by the way, we are creating in detroit, we are roaring back in detroit with hundreds of new restaurants being opened and so, i would suggest, as well as food trucks so you ought to come on up, wed love to have you join us, up in this great new effort thats happening. So we i was just meeting the other day with folks opening restaurants and saying theyre desperately in need of chefs and culinary help so thats just a plug for detroit. So, let me start, doctor, talking about the fact that snap enrollment does go up and down, thats what its supposed to do and that the good news is that thes the costs are going down because were seeing the economy Getting Better and well save about 80 billion over the next ten years. Can you tell us a little more about what your Research Shows about participation and why its important that snap is able to shrink as well as grow when theres need . Absolutely. The snap program was one of our most important programs during the Great Recession. I mean, we of course, remember that we saw labor market devastation on a scale not seen since the Great Recession Great Depression. Our calculations at Brookings Institution is the economy just in july recovered back to the jobs numbers that we had at the beginning of that. So it was a very long deep recession and you recall a lot of people on snap will be the first to lose their jobs and last to get them back. So, you know, what the research has found is that every dollar that got spent on the snap program really stimulated the local economy because people spend those very quickly and spend at local Grocery Stores, help families make sure that kid are able to go to school and learn and the program has many, many terrific strengths. Thank you so much. Mr. Schaeffer, had you clearly run an Impressive Program and i appreciate you being here today. Can you talk about why voluntary Training Programs are more effective in connecting snap recipients to employment than a time restrictions or other kinds of punitive actions. Thank you for the compliment, and coming into a program like ours, they come in weeks or days after being released from prison. The challenges they face, reconnecting with families, finding an affordable place to live and the Substance Abuse treatment that so many will need. Putting incredibly hard and tight work requirements under those obligations, sometimes its not realistic for the individuals. We also find that with many populations who access snap and the benefits. They have to be able to choose the program to enroll the program thats going to best fit their needs and interests and allow them to be successful. But we found in our program in criminal justice literature generally, if you mandate someone into a program youre much less likely to have longterm success, certainly is critical to provide that array of programming to give folks the opportunity and the appropriate amount of time to find food and economic security. Thank you, and government mandates in this case are not as effective as voluntary programs. Correct. Thank you. Mr. Wright, i am so impressed with what you have been doing with the market and also, very impressed that youre talking about combining that with help and reaching out, the connection between nutrition, Health Outcomes are so important and really appreciate the fact that youre really leading in that effort. Could you talk a little bit more about the Economic Impact that the Incentive Programs have for independent grocers like yours . Well, certainly in our business, snap is almost 40 of our retail sales. And so, it certainly creates jobs and its very helpful to us from the economic standpoint. Some of the other things that snap Program Brings to the table is just reaching and weve seen examples of reaching people that are desperately in need. There certainly is a business out of that, but by the same time, just the other benefits for our community, we still see a lot of elderly and people. But it is an economic driver. I saw some statistics in 2015, for every 1 in snap business, i think that 1. 80 was returned back and i think a colleague here referred to 9. So, its certainly an economic generator, its something thats good for our industry and i think very Efficient Program the government does to get that kind of return back on it. Thank you very much, thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator bosman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. In arkansas, with un one in four children struggles with hunger and not all are getting the programs that they need. Dr. Schanzenbach, did i get that right . Youre probably like me, answer to anything. And children have access to snap and educational outcomes. Do you see connections between the snap and the school meals . How is the interaction of these working on the ground . As i mentioned in my testimony, i think the performance standard you all put in last time, relating snap and the National School Lunch Program have done a tremendous amount of good making sure that children have access to both sets of programs and i would ask you to consider the same with wic. The participation of wic is low. And that falls down to 35 by age four and i think, you know, establishing some performance standards would really help these vulnerable children. Can you expand on the online snap Pilot Program that your Grocery Stores participating in . How do you think it can be effective tool to fight hunger in rural food deserts like the ones that we have in arkansas and i know in alabama. Again, were very pleased and honored to be a part of the Pilot Program. You know, when people typically think of a food desert, they think in the urban areas, shei sheing chicago or Something Like that. Alabama like arkansas, in rural areas, areas that dont have a population density to support a full sized brick and mortar supermarket. I think that using ecommerce and online we can bring Fresh Produce and meat to these customers that would not be accessible to them as they are today. Again, partner with the health care component, which is another area thats missing in the Rural Communities, we feel weve got a great model that can make a difference nutritionally and in health care, also. Mr. Wright, mr. Riendeau, you both serve communities that have the deserts. What are the various measures to food access and how are these being solved from the local level . Sometimes its difficult, you know, to push things out at the federal level to the, you kno know arkansas is difference from massachusetts. Where we get into trouble is one size fits out. Yes, and serving rural areas in our world is as much it presents unique travel, and that we dont see in theres the lack of good partners or just fewer partners that week we can work with, and particularly in the case of children, kid dont congregate in rural areas like they do in urban areas. I was here to talk about the Summer Food Service program and the importance of injecting flexibility into that program to allow states like yours and my Rural Counties to adapt the program to meet the unique challenges in those communities and work. Some progress was made there. Like anything that the committee can do to encourage that flexibility for food banks like mine to fit the unique circumstances that we see are worthwhile. Very good. I know, the congregant feeding issues and all of those things are very, very important and thats just something that we have to deal with and provide some flexibility. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator im sorry, senator brown. I apologize. Sorry about that. Hes taller, you didnt see me. Well, you sneaked in on my right here. Fair enough. First, im sorry weve been doing tax reform finance committee on banking issues and i apologize for not being here. Mr. Parker, ive heard recounting of your ceremony and i appreciate it and genuineness and i appreciate the chairmans response and mr. Wright, thank you nor what you do in alabama. My wife and i live in the city of cleveland and my zip code has more foreclosures than any in that year and we have stores not too different from yours, one particularly that serves what, what people call food deserts and thank you for you step up as a Small Business person reich th like that and to both of you. Doctor, last week i met with the health food bank, several hospitals, ceos from central ohio. Theyre partnering to tackle hunger headon, one message who you food and nutrition are so linked to Health Outcomes. We know the zip code you come from whether its appalachia, ohio, dayton, it matters to your health and so on. And they told the safety net programs like snap, Good Nutrition lead to patients who can recover better and to avoid Chronic Health issues. As one executive said, we can pay now or pay later. Two questions, your Research Shows links between snap and our broader work to address poverty in this country, including improvements in health care and educational outcomes. Are there improvements we make specifically to snap that would accelerate these gains . You know, in my opinion, the premise we could make are two fold. One, the benefits right now are meager, 4. 50 per person per day and as the evidence suggests, slightly larger benefit would just improve the effectiveness of the program all the more, allow people to escape Food Insecurity by healthier foods and so on. The second would be expanding those marketbased incentives to buy healthier food whether its a food double up program or other programs like that. Talk in more detail about if the first of all, i think that americans dont really know, you know, they we use the term food stamps for years and that term was seen by far too many people as a negative light, i think its one reason its called snap. And surely people think the benefits are greater than they are. A story about they judged standing in line next to them or whatever and sometimes its about its whenever taxpayers see others up close that stories are told, as you know. Talk through what having access to food, having a little bit more at snap, what it would mean for families trying to move up poverty. Put us in a position. We dont, few of us, certainly all of us her, as pope francis preached, go out and go with the flock. We dont hear up close the stories, mr. Parker, and dont experience it nearly often enough so talk that through, if you would. Sure, theres Good Research evidence, modest increases in benefit levels will allow people to buy healthier food, right . So those first dollars that you have, especially if youre saving a lot, going to buy high calorie dense food. If you have more, you have varied diets and et cetera. And modest increase in food benefits, snap benefits would encrease the purchase of vegetables, greens, high quality proteins, and in fact, reduce the likelihood that people buy fast food and buy healthier foods with more money. Is there evidence that the program weve done and experimented with and allowed food stamps to be used snap to be used in farmers markets, buying fruits and vegetables and create some value, are those working in the himented way theyve been tried . They certainly seem to be. Anytime you change the relative price of something, reduce the price of produce, people will buy more of them. I compliment the chairman on this committee, this work on the breakfast School Lunch Program and worked with a number of schools in marion and work to get young papers expose today more fruits and vegetables if that can and thanks to all five of you on the panel. Thanks, senator. Thanks, mr. Chairman and the panel for being here, this is an informative committee and jimmy, thanks for being here and talking about your great initiatives. A couple of things you didnt mention i want the committee to be aware of, you mention partnering with medical centers to address those issues, but also, you work with Hunger Solutions institute and our cooperative extension service, brings those resources to those needed constituents, help them make better choices about their food and choices. I want to compliment you on and i appreciate the chairman asking questions about your testimony about the processing time, some of the regulatory burdens that you face. It sounds like its more of a regulatory issue, but would be anticipate open to any discussions there. And im so glad youre participating in this program, but as a small retailer addressing a unique problem, i wish you would address the challenges that you face or opportunities maybe in dealing with other participants like the larger ones, the amazons and walmarts of the world. How do you differentiate yourself and your challenges from them . Well, thanks, senator strange. Ive always looked at business, my business two ways, i looked at it on the transactional side and i think thats the way that most independent grocers in america do that. Independents, were anchoring our communities and were going to stay here good times and bad and some of our competitors, when its tough they go and leave. As far as an online pilot is considered, the transactional side is getting a package from a to b and thats fine. You know, we have to compete in that space and we certainly understand that and thats part of our business. The other side, knowing the people we serve and knowing them on a personal basis and thats why we wanted to add Popular Health care, more realistic. And the relationships that we can build with carryover and some of the programs that youve heard today. But essentially, my Business Model and the Business Model for independent grocers from coast to coast, were anchoring our communities whether its instore or whether its online. Were going to make the relationships personal in our communities and be there to serve. I love that approach to a holistic approach. Hes raising, emily is 13 and around the store so this is a general al thing and its effective. You might tell about the delivery route you implemented, people cant get to your great facility and if youve got any advice you might offer to any other retailers in your situation who are considering doing that. Thank you. Two components to that. We started about three years ago as we said in the Opening Statement with our Shuttle Service, back to some of the conversations we had. The transportation is still a huge issue even in a community thats a pretty decent size. We still see a lot of elderly people that i just have a tough time getting to the Grocery Store. So we started out having the people call our store and we come pick them up and take them to the store and let them shop and we take them back home and theres not a lot of chores to that. We see them in the program. As we roll into the ecommerce part of this, we see in the same way as our initial launch, a lot of seniors out there were reaching now that cant get out to the store. Even if they want today ride in our shuttle. Theyre just not physically habel able to do that and we see that. As we reach the rural areas, this are four communities that surround opelike, alabama, that do not have a full Service Grocery store. Their fresh food options are extremely limited and this is the way that we see building a route to be able to go out and give people access to the Grocery Store without the Grocery Store actually being there. I want to compliment the panelists, as a former attorney general, i appreciate the reentry efforts youre making thats a significant component of the criminal Justice System and thats very important. Mr. Parker, congratulations on your success and the food banks, youre obviously a critical part of chain of support. And appreciate our economists validating some things that are going on. Thank you, panelists and thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i want to thank the panel and particularly to mr. Parker for being here to testify before the committee. Thanks for your service to our country. Were very, very grateful to you for that and taking the time to be here and share your story and for the entire panel. To mr. Wright, i will tell you some of my dear friends back home are independent grocers who work hard every day know the only do they run good shops, but that folks in our community have a decent meal in front of them and so were grateful for your American Ingenuity and entrepreneurship and hard work and that goes for the entire panel as well. Mr. Riendeau, one of the things you do help hoosiers in Southern Indiana, be able to meet their needs and take care of their families and i want to thank you for that. I hear regularly from hoosiers on the importance of getting high quality american commodities such as hoosier grown meat and produce to the people in our country who need it most and thats imported by t tfap. The. Can you tell how tfap adds value from food programs and dairy care . And the volume that we receive from tfap is critical as we face Food Insecurity in Southern Indiana and in kentucky. So, the product itself is important in terms of providing meals to people in need. Dare to care has worked over the last few years to really begin using our food and programs to improve the health and nutrition of our clients. We know theres a direct link between poor dighton a diet and health. We cant always count on what the donated product is going to be and we get what we get. Tfap is 100 , considered 100 foods to encourage, so its a critical component of our ability to get healthier, fresher food to our clients and address the health needs that we see. This next question for you, again, mr. Riendeau and mr. Wright as well. The importance of knowing how to stretch food dollars is really significant. Purdue extension in our state does a great job in helping families gain skills and strategies that help make grocery trips more successful. To mr. Riendeau and mr. Wright. Can you share with us more about the Nutrition Education and the skill building programs that you talked to families about, helping to stretch their dollars and make good food decisions . Mr. Wright, would you like to go first . Yes, an important part of the model we have Going Forward is the alabama Cooperation Program and certainly, educational, how to shop smarter and how to cook smarter and healthier. And thats i cant stress the huge importance of that, the store that i actually am involved with in atlanta has got a program now thats a sixweek Cooking Program and addresses the same issues of how to stretch your dollars, how to make your budget work for you, and what you put in your basket and how to prepare that in a healthy way. But i cant speak enough about the importance of the education piece and the partnership that we look forward to having. Mr. Riendeau. You raise a great point, one of the things we come to realize we push more healthy food out and make it available is that access is only part of the issue. The understanding why its important to eat, changing cultural habits, and attitude, and then understanding what to do with Healthy Products is super critical. So we have a program called cooking matters, which its a sixweek program that teaches adults and children and families how to shop for, prepare and consume healthy food on a budget. We have a dietician on staff. She works to operate that program. We also hand out nutrition related information and recipes, the products that we distribute. A lot of the product we get from tfab a lot of times clients ask what is this . What do i do with it. Its healthy, but nutritional education is a critical component of the work that we do and anything that the committee can do to help us on that front would be very important. One last question for dr. Schanze nba ch. Can you express the security for children and why the challenges they face is different from adults. Sure, its a hard nut to crack. We find a lot of times in the poorest families, the adults in the household are suffering from other challenges, mental health, problems, depression and so on, as a result not only its hard to get a job and hold down a job its hard to go grocery shopping, cook meals, et cetera. So nofault of the childrens. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman and i want to thank you and to thank senator roberts and stabenow for this hearing today. This Nutrition Assistance Program is very important in my state and i was proud to say that our snap program, last year we had minnesota was one of 11 states that had validated by the usda and as result received a bonus payment and hell ask question on the record for the first panel about that, clearly were doing something right. Last year, 479,000 minnesotans participated in the snap program, but almost 69 of those participants were in families with children. My state is not alone in terms of need. What more can we do to strengthsen snap, Nutrition Education programs and support efforts taking place in communities so that snap participants can make healthy choices . Sure. So in terms of healthy choices, i really think we want to capitalize on whats great about snap, which is that it works well with the free market system, and to do that, typically we need to either change demand for fruits and vegetables and Healthy Foods, either through Education Programs or by changing prices. By giving bonuses for, you know, for purchase of Healthy Foods. Very good. Mr. Wright, bringing broadband is one of my Top Priorities to Rural Communities and we have some real issues in our state with that. Farmers that do their business at parking lots and things like that. So, in the case of the last farm bill, it included a Pilot Program to test the feesability of online snap purchases, real broadband can of course, increase access and you access to your customers is going to be a barrier from participating in the program . Im sure well find some proverbial digital deserts out there, i guess two ways to look at that, it may be a challenge, but gives an opportunity to address some of those issues, but we think we can do that with some technology. We still have people today that are actually using, you know, Something Like satellite dish, you know, and some other things on buildings to be able to access technology. So, we will find a way to work, make this work, but it would be great if this continues to be at the forefront of the discussion, the bill that Broadband Access is improved in the areas. Thank you. Mr. Riendeau, one of the programs to help alleviate hunger is the Food Assistance program and i join with senators casy and purdue to be proactive in purchasing and donating bonus like second heartland in st. Paul and the issue just raised by the doctor, and can you talk about the importance of the usdas bonus commodities and have bonus commodities kept pace with demand . Thank you, and thank you for your important point of that program. Yes, the bonus component is important to us, its in addition to the base and it goes towards helping us meet what we see as near record levels, unacceptable a high levels of Food Insecurity. I guess i would talk about the nutritional aspects of the produce. These are high quality proteins, vegetables, fruits, things that we dont get donated, things we have to either buy or receive through this program so its critical to helping us not only meet the need, but, you know, meeting it with the right types of food and i thank you for your continued support of that. Thank you. Mr. Schaeffer, Publicprivate Partnership play an Important Role in pooling resources, maximizing the value. Can you elaborate on your experience with Publicprivate Partnerships and the outcomes . Thank you for the question, senator. Its not just the hall mark of the ceo approach about you of the Program Helping to extend its rich far more broadly than if it didnt exit. Ill give you an example, two states, pennsylvania and ohio. In ohio there was a strong interest in bringing ceos Reentry Services to the state across cincinnati, columbus and cleveland. You know, large numbers of people coming home every year, facing both Food Insecurity and a lack of employment. And those are folks eager to work and giving that support. They teamed different agencies, the department of corrections and department of jobs and Family Services for reentry into the state. Part of that was a 5050 match from this now program. Well be able to leverage in ohio, inover 2 million in that match program. Its an ability for states to design programs, projects and initiatives responsive to meet their authorities than they would without the match. All right, very good. Thank you to all of you. Brought me a gift for asking such nice questions, thank you. What you have to do to achieve bipartisan support. [laughter] that will conclude our hearing today. And i want to thank each of our witnesses for taking time to share your views on the nutrition programs within the farm bill. The testimony provided today are valuable for the committee to hear firsthand and we will follow up with the suggestions and various witnesses to meet with our staff so we can further learn from you what we can do to better improve the program and for those in the audience who want to provide additional thoughts on the farm bill we have set up an address on the Senate Ag Committees website to collect your input. Please go to ag. Senate. Gov and say that, ag. Senate. Gov and click on the farm bill on the lefthand side of the your screen. And that will be open five Business Days following the hearing. We have asked that any further questions be committed by next thursday, september 21st, pardon me. The committee stands adjourned. Thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] were live on this friday morning for a conference on u. S. Trans atlantic relations, shifting dynamics during the Trump Administration and potential implications of recent european elections, including the forth coming german elections, this is hosted by the Brookings Institution, live coverage on cspan2. We expect it to get underway in just a moment. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] were live on this friday morning from the Brookings Institution for a conference on u. S. Transatlantic relations. It looks like its just about to get underway here