Action Alert on FOUR Important FY24 State Budget Amendments; Upcoming SNAP Coalition meetings 4/24 and 5/2

FoodSNAP

TO: SNAP Coalition

FR: Pat Baker and Vicky Negus

 

We are in the throes of the FY24 State Budget deliberations and have four important amendments filed last week that we need your House Representative to co-sponsors THIS WEEK!  And we also hope you’ll put on your calendar two upcoming SNAP Coalition meetings.

 

Critical Anti-Poverty/Food Security Budget Amendments Needing Co-sponsors:

Please ask your State Rep to consider co-sponsoring all of these very important House budget amendments. The House will take up debate on the FY24 budget next week, starting April 24th. The more support we can show for these critical amendments this week, the better the chances of getting them adopted in the final House budget, and/or during Conference Committee after the Senate deliberates the FY24 Budget in May. 

 

  • State-funded benefits for legally present immigrants: Chairman Antonio Cabral has filed Amendment #98 to secure $18M for state-funded SNAP and TAFDC cash benefits for legally present but federally ineligible immigrants. This includes low income immigrants who have DACA/Dreamers, TPS, pending asylum, humanitarian parole and others iced out of benefits. The amendment would also require DTA to proactively screen immigrant households for federal benefits. See Feeding Our Neighbors action alert HERE

 

  • Increasing TAFDC and EAEDC cash grants: Rep Marjorie Decker has filed Amendment #1023 to raise cash assistance grants for very low-income families with children, elders, and people with disabilities by 20% for State FY 24 and continue the increases until grants reach half the federal poverty level (deep poverty) followed by annual increases to keep up with inflation. See Lift Our Kids action alert HERE. 

 

  • Hunger Free Campus initiative: Rep Andy Vargas has filed Amendment #465 to secure $4M for the Dept of Higher Education to distribute grants to public colleges and minority serving institutions that commit to SNAP enrollment activities, EBT campus grocers, partnering with food pantries, create Hunger Free Campus taskforces with students with lived expertise. See Hunger Free Campus webpage HERE.

 

  • Health Incentives Program Funding: Rep Hannah Kane has filed Amendment #265  to increase funding by $9 million for the Healthy Incentives Program to level funding of $24 million.The program is funded at $15 million in HWM through a combination of $5 million in new funding and an expected $10 million “carry over” (PAC).HIP is critical this year as the state-funded emergency SNAP allotments end in June and 107 new HIP farmers come online, greatly increasing equitable access to the program across the state. See Mass Food Systems Collaborative’s FY24 Budget webpage HERE

 

To see all 1,156 House budget amendments (yes, over 1,500) and the status of co-sponsorship, go HERE (search by amendment number, scroll to bottom of amendment PDF to see current co-sponsors). To find the phone and email of your State Rep, go HERE..   

 

TWO Upcoming SNAP Coalition Meetings:  

Yes, we are scheduling two meetings in the next two weeks. We hope you can join, 

 

  1. Next Tuesday April 24 is our typical (virtual) Coalition meeting from 10-11:30. Zoom link here, agenda to come later this week.

  2. Save the date for a special SNAP Coalition meeting on Tuesday, May 2 from 10-11 AM with DTA, DTA will be sharing important updates on how they are addressing various fraudulent efforts (eg. phishing). Please tune in if you are available. Zoom link for this important special meeting here.