What's new at MLS

Greetings and welcome to September The following email is to give you some brief updates on recent SNAP policy items of interest. 1) SNAP and Medical Expense Deduction: In its August 2015 Transitions Magazine, DTA included a number of Policy Hotline questions and answers for…

Please see attached letter from Commissioner McCue regarding changes at the Springfield State St. DTA office.    TODAY, July 31, will be the last day for walk-in services at the State Street location. Starting on Monday, August 3, DTA will move services for walk-in clients to…

Hot off the press for those of you not at the SNAP Elder Working group meeting (which Lauren also attended). Miriam Kaufman is the Assistant SNAP Director, who many of you may know as an excellent worker and supervisor for many years. Lauren will be at the July 28th SNAP Coalition meeting as…

We have just received word from staff at The Open Door in Gloucester that the My Account Page (MAP) has been seriously malfunctioning. Some of the days last week and this past week, the MAP apparently listed notices and forms sent to SNAP households, but when you downloaded the…

FNS Agrees that DTA Must Stop Erroneously Counting "Recouped" or withheld Social Security Benefits (same rule for recouped UI and VA Pension) We are continuing to hear of cases where DTA is incorrectly counting in the SNAP calculation the income that Social Security is recouping for a…

Re: SNAP Recertification processing delays- Update and Check-In   "> SNAP Coalition members have repeatedly shared problems with DTA not acting on documents they receive on SNAP applications and recertifications.     As Coalition…

We are writing to ask you to reach out to low income veterans whose SNAP benefits may have been reduced or terminated because DTA incorrectly counted VA Pension monies the veteran does not receive. In addition to a host of troubling DTA "data matches" (matches involving…

We are hearing ongoing rumblings of problems getting through to DTA. One example from today from a community advocate:     "Every time I have tried to call DTA'€™s new main number or the recipient services line, I get the same message: âDue to an extremely high volume of calls,…

USDA recently posted the state-by-state SNAP "timeliness processing" data for FFY 2013 (that's federal fiscal year for Oct 1, 2012 to Sept 31, 2013).    According to USDA, Massachusetts fell from 10th in the nation in FFY 2011 in processing SNAP applications to 39th in…

The Department of Public Health (DPH) has formally announced the WIC switch to the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system from the the more cumbersome food vouchers, This is a significant change for both WIC participants as well as retailers and should be an improvement in…