Fitial to Kilili: Give me $700K and I will support SNAP

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial said he would support the CNMI’s inclusion in the national food stamp program if Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan (Ind-MP) can give him $700,000 in matching funds for administrative costs.

Sablan responded yesterday that any matching fund is required from the CNMI government.

The delegate reiterated that while the CNMI government is expected to cough up $500,000 to $700,000, which is 50 percent of the administrative costs, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP will mean an increase of $12 million to $24 million in food stamp benefits and multiplier effect in the local economy of some $20 million.

“I will continue to work with the governor to try to convince him that SNAP is a good program,” Sablan said.

Fitial, in an interview with reporters on Saturday, said the projected multiplier impact of SNAP is a “dreamland.”

“Let’s talk realistic, let’s talk reality. Give me the matching and I will bring in SNAP,” the governor said.

At the same time, the governor said he asked the U.S. Food and Nutrition Service not to de-obligate $4.5 million earmarked for the establishment of an electronic benefit transfer system in the CNMI because it will help combat what he calls food stamp abuse or “benefit trafficking.”

According to the governor’s definition, benefit trafficking happens when unemployed nonresident parents trade their U.S. citizen child’s food stamp vouchers for cash or for products not allowed under the program’s guidelines.

He said this underground economy is harming not just the program’s integrity but also legitimate businesses and beneficiaries who follow the rules.

Fitial said by having an electronic benefit system, the incidences of benefit trafficking will be reduced, if not totally eliminated.

Unlike other states and territories, food stamps are still issued as physical voucher coupons in the CNMI.

Fitial said the meeting he had with Food and Nutrition Service in Washington, D.C. was requested by FNS officials.

“I didn’t ask for that meeting. I was very happy that meeting took place. The message I gave them, there’s a lot of illegal trafficking of food stamp in the CNMI because some, as you know, some people would come here pregnant, and they will deliver babies and the babies will be qualified for food stamps and then the parents will collect the food stamp and they will turn around and go to retailers and they will exchange the food stamp with cash and that is [not right]. We need enforcement that’s why I asked them why you de-obligated that money when we need that money to buy automated system to provide for the enforcement,” he said.

The response he got from FNS, he said, was that there’s a memorandum of understanding the U.S. Department of Agriculture has to comply with.

“So I said ‘good’, now that you complied with the MOU, so we need that money to purchase the [EBT] system,” he said.

USDA has not made a final decision whether to give back the $4.5 million to the CNMI for the EBT because the funds have been earmarked for such a system for many years, yet the CNMI has yet to put it in place.

When asked whether he would ask that portions of the $4.5 million could be used for actual food benefits, Fitial said, “We don’t have any problem with the benefit under the current program.”

“We’re going to have problem with SNAP because SNAP requires matching and I don’t have money to match so that’s why I told Audrey Rowe, the administrator of FNS, that I will never support SNAP as long as I’m required to put up the matching for SNAP,” he said.