New department leaders promise to correct USDA's mismanagement of SNAP funds

(The Center Square) – A recent government audit of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program showed that the Biden administration’s management of the program violated federal laws.

The United States Department of Agriculture, which manages the program, is supposed to obligate program funds for the fiscal year once Congress makes appropriations available. Instead, the department was obligating funds based on daily program distributions – until September 2023. In September, it chose to obligate its fiscal year 2023 one-year appropriation for SNAP benefits for October, the first month of fiscal year 2024. 

The Government Accountability Office concluded in its new report that the department violated the recording statute, which guides how the department can obligate program funds; the bona fide needs statute, because the law prohibits the department from using funds for one fiscal year for another; and the Antideficiency Act, because it lacked sufficient funds in its FY 2024 appropriations and didn’t report it.

According to the USDA’s newly appointed Chief of Staff Kailee Buller, then Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack and Deputy Under Secretary Stacy Dean mismanaged funds because they used a “memorandum from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities as their guide.”

“Make no mistake, Secretary Vilsack and Deputy Under Secretary Stacy Dean put politics over commonsense, ignoring scores of USDA financial analysts and policy experts,” Buller said in a statement. “Vilsack and Dean compromised the integrity of SNAP, the financial standing of USDA, and further eroded public trust.” 

“The Trump Administration will immediately correct this egregious action, making certain material weaknesses like this do not happen again,” Buller added.