ATLANTA — Georgia’s food stamps backlog still has thousands of applications and renewals overdue, but the state says it’s making progress to finish addressing the backlog.
In the seven months since federal officials put Georgia on notice to address what they said were severe issues in the state’s management of nutrition assistance programs, progress is underway but thousands of applications are still waiting for review.
According to the latest data from the Georgia Department of Human Services, more than 34,600 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program applications are still waiting to be approved or rejected and more than 850 renewals are also waiting.
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Federal officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture first ordered the Georgia DHS to address the backlog in November. As previously reported by Channel 2 Action News, the application processing timeliness, or the rate of how quickly applications are reviewed, was below federal requirements.
As state officials worked to address the program backlogs, the APT rate fell, dropping to 69.75 in December. The federal requirement for APT scores is 95, according to the Food and Nutrition Service, though they accept a 90 APT.
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In February, state officials told Channel 2 Action News that they had a more than 43,000 case backlog for SNAP applications and renewals.
Now, officials say there are still 34,653 applications that are overdue, with another 855 renewals overdue.
In total, that means more than 35,500 cases are still waiting to be addressed.
That said, DHS is still working to fix the problems and have been devoting more resources to handling the backlog of cases still happening.
“We have employed a number of techniques to prioritize this issue and support our workers in completing their work as efficiently as possible. We have taken advantage of overtime and stipends for our staff and implemented periodic reporting, among other things,” a DHS spokeswoman told Channel 2 Action News in a statement. “We have had a dedicated group of workers focused on the renewal backlog, and now that the renewal backlog has been mostly resolved, we are moving those workers back to focus on applications.”
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