Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined Georgia and Wisconsin food stamp recipients' benefit interruptions to determine the extent of and reasons for participants' temporary termination from food stamp programs.
GAO found that: (1) 87 percent of interruptions experienced in Georgia and Wisconsin households were due to eligibility status changes, and the remaining interruptions were caused by households' or states' noncompliance with procedural requirements; (2) during fiscal year 1987, procedural noncompliance caused about 18,800 Georgia households to lose between $400,000 and $3.4 million in benefits and about 14,400 Wisconsin households to lose between $400,000 and $1.9 million in benefits; (3) household-caused interruptions resulted from participants' failure to timely submit monthly reports, provide verification documents, notify offices of nonreceipt of stamps, or meet work requirements; (4) Georgia, along with 39 other states, adopted a monthly reporting reinstatement option which allowed service continuation with full benefits, rather than temporary service termination, and acceptance of participants' monthly reports after the due date; (5) states would require amendments to the Food Stamp Act to exclude participants applying for recertification from the act's proration provisions; (6) state-caused interruptions in Wisconsin resulted from improper implementation of the monthly reporting reinstatement option, untimely processing of participants' documents and forms, and inadequate automation capability; (7) Wisconsin's plans for awareness training for caseworkers and computer programming changes should help to reduce those errors; and (8) the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has not determined why 13 other states have not adopted the monthly reporting reinstatement option.
