UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Food, Nutrition and Consumer Service
Statement of Roberto Salazar, Administrator
Food and Nutrition Service
Before the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development,
Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies
March 13, 2008
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and members of the
Subcommittee for allowing me this opportunity to present testimony in support of
the fiscal year 2009 budget request for the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS).
The Food and Nutrition Service is the agency charged with administering fifteen
nutrition assistance programs that serve as the Nation’s nutrition safety net,
and with providing Federal leadership in America’s ongoing effort to reduce
hunger and poor nutrition. Our mission is to increase food security and reduce
hunger in partnership with cooperating organizations by providing children and
low-income people access to food and nutrition education in a manner that
supports American agriculture and inspires public confidence. The budget request
demonstrates the President’s continuing commitment to this mission and these
programs. This budget strengthens the Federal nutrition assistance safety net in
a time of competing priorities and limited resources, balancing program access,
good nutrition, and program integrity to meet our key commitments to serve
program clients effectively and with dignity, and to protect the taxpayer
investment that makes these programs a reality. The
request includes over $64.1 billion in budget authority to fund the FNS
nutrition assistance programs – programs that touch the lives of more than 1 in
5 Americans over the course of a year. The resources we
are here to discuss represent an investment in the health, self-sufficiency, and
productivity of Americans who, at times, find themselves in need of nutrition
assistance. In her testimony, Under Secretary Johner outlined three critical
challenges that the Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services team has focused on
under her leadership: expanding access to the Federal nutrition assistance
programs; promoting healthful diets and active lifestyles by making nutrition
education an integral part of the nutrition assistance programs; and improving
the integrity with which our programs are administered. In addition, the
President’s Management Agenda represents an ambitious strategy for management
improvement across the Federal Government. I would like to report on our efforts
to address one of the key items from this agenda - reducing improper payments
and enhancing the efficiency of program delivery. The
Challenge of Improper Payments Good financial
management is at the center of the President’s Management Agenda. As with any
Federal program, the nutrition assistance programs require sustained attention
to integrity. We cannot sustain these programs over the long term without
continued public trust in our ability to manage them effectively. For this
reason, a high degree of program integrity is as fundamental to our mission as
program access or healthy eating. We have identified
four programs susceptible to significant improper payments: the Food Stamp
Program, the school meals programs, the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP),
and WIC. Our efforts to minimize improper program payments focus on:
1) |
working closely
with States to improve food stamp payment accuracy; |
2) |
implementing
policy changes and new oversight efforts to improve school meals
certification; |
3) |
improving
management of CACFP providers; and |
4) |
improving
management of WIC vendors. We will continue to enhance the
efficiency and accuracy with which these programs are delivered.
|
I am happy to report that in fiscal year 2006, the most
recent year for which data are available, we maintained a high level of food
stamp payment accuracy. The combined payment accuracy rate in the Food Stamp
Program was an outstanding 94.01 percent in fiscal year 2006. With this budget
request we will sustain our efforts with our State partners toward continued
improvement. We have continued our efforts to address the issue of certification
error in the school meals programs to improve the accuracy of this process
without limiting access of eligible children, or unduly increasing
administrative burden on schools. In November 2007, we issued the results of the
first-ever attempt to develop a comprehensive measure of the cost of improper
payments in the school meals programs. This initiative helps to identify the
sources of improper payments and quantifies the scope of the problem. FNS is
using this new information to continue the extensive work underway. We are under
no illusion, however, that this task will be easy. Actions to reduce these
errors must improve accuracy without compromising access for low-income
families, must not be unduly burdensome on schools, and must be cost-effective.
Analytical work will also continue under this budget request to better assess
the accuracy of payments in WIC and CACFP. Now, I would
like to review some of the components of our request under each program area.
Food Stamp Program The President’s budget
requests $43.3 billion for the Food Stamp account including the Food Stamp
Program, continuation of the contingency reserve, and its associated nutrition
assistance programs. These resources will serve an estimated 28.0 million people
on average each month in the Food Stamp Program alone. We have also proposed, as
an alternative to the traditional contingency reserve, indefinite funding
authority for program benefits and payments to States and other non-Federal
entities. In addition, we plan to continue our concentrated effort to encourage
working families, senior citizens and legal immigrants to apply for benefits.
The budget request includes $9 million for program evaluation and modernization
efforts in three significant areas: $4.5 million for the demonstration and
evaluation of alternative strategies to modernize the application and
re-certification process, $2 million to evaluate promising Food Stamp nutrition
education practices, and $2.5 million to test alternative strategies to increase
participation among the elderly and working poor. The
fiscal year 2009 budget request assumes that Administration Farm Bill proposals
are enacted in the middle of fiscal year 2008. These include proposals to
exclude the value of retirement accounts and education savings accounts from the
asset test, thus enabling low-income people to get nutrition assistance without
depleting their retirement savings or education savings. The President’s budget
improves access among the working poor by eliminating the cap on the dependent
care deduction. The budget also includes a proposal that provides permanent
authority for a policy included in last year’s Appropriation to exclude special
military pay received by members of the armed forces serving in combat zones
when determining food stamp eligibility and benefits for their families back
home. We also need to ensure program access is administered in an equitable
manner across all States, so another Farm Bill proposal would eliminate
categorical food stamp eligibility for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
participants who receive only non-cash TANF services. This change only affects
those households who have income or assets that exceed the program’s regular
limits, and saves $636 million in Food Stamp Program spending through 2013. We
believe this proposal ensures that food stamp benefits go to the households with
demonstrated need and retains categorical eligibility for the large number of
recipients who receive cash assistance through TANF, Supplemental Security
Income and General Assistance Programs. Child
Nutrition Programs The budget requests $14.5 billion
for the Child Nutrition Programs, which provide millions of nutritious meals to
children in schools and in childcare settings every day. This level of funding
will provide over 5.31 billion meals and support an increase in daily National
School Lunch Program participation from the current 31.6 million children to
approximately 32.1 million children. Requested increases in these programs
reflect rising school enrollment, increases in payment rates to cover inflation,
and proportionately higher levels of meal service among children in the free and
reduced price categories. The President’s budget request
includes an additional $1 million for CACFP to permit FNS to develop payment
accuracy estimates as required by the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002,
and $2 million to fund the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment, the fourth in an
ongoing series of evaluations of the quality of school meals. These proposals
continue our efforts to improve program integrity and nutritional quality in the
school meals programs. WIC
The President’s budget includes $6.1 billion for the Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, the WIC Program. The request
will provide food, nutrition education, and a link to health care to a monthly
average of 8.6 million needy women, infants and children during fiscal year
2009. The request places a limit on Nutrition Services
and Administration (NSA) funding to no more than $14.97 per participant, the
amount received in fiscal year 2007. This proposal targets WIC resources to
providing food benefits to participants while the reduction in NSA funding is
not anticipated to have a significant impact on delivery of core WIC services.
States will be encouraged to work with Federal program staff to seek
efficiencies in the delivery of the program to ensure that the reduction in NSA
funding does not impact core services. The budget
request limits automatic (adjunctive) eligibility based on participation in
Medicaid to those individuals whose incomes are below 250 percent of the Federal
poverty guidelines. Some State Medicaid programs permit participation of
individuals with incomes significantly higher than the WIC eligibility standard
(185 percent of the Federal poverty guidelines). This proposal better targets
WIC benefits to those most in need. The budget request
includes $150 million for the WIC contingency fund, the same amount provided in
fiscal year 2008. We currently anticipate fully using the contingency reserve in
fiscal year 2009 to support participation. Commodity
Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) The budget again
does not propose funding for CSFP. We continue to believe our limited resources
are best focused on the major nutrition programs – the Food Stamp Program and
the WIC Program, for example – that are available nationwide and provide
flexibility and robust nutrition education opportunities for participants. In
addition, targeting our limited resources to these national programs promotes
equity and the effective use of taxpayer funds. Currently, CSFP operates only in
limited areas of 32 States, in the District of Columbia, and through two Indian
Tribal Organizations, whereas the Food Stamp Program and the WIC Program are
available nationwide. Furthermore, CSFP benefits and target populations overlap
to a great extent with the Food Stamp Program and the WIC Program. By
transitioning eligible CSFP participants into these national programs, we
believe they will be better served, both in terms of benefits and in terms of
nutrition education. To support this transition, the
budget request includes $2 million to provide outreach and assist individuals
enrolling in the Food Stamp Program. Furthermore, elderly CSFP participants who
do not already participate in the Food Stamp Program will receive a $20 per
month transitional benefit for six months or until they enroll in the Food Stamp
Program, whichever occurs first. Finally, as I have noted, we are working very
hard to increase participation among elderly eligibles.
The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) As
provided for in the Farm Bill, the budget requests $140 million for commodities
in this important program. Our request for States’ storage and distribution
costs, critical support for the Nation’s food banks, is $49.5 million. FNS is
committed to ensuring the continuing flow of resources to the food bank
community, including directly purchased commodities, administrative funding, and
commodities from the USDA market support activities. Much of this funding is
provided, at the local level, to faith-based organizations.
Nutrition Programs Administration (NPA)
We are requesting $150.3 million in this account to sustain the program
management and support activities of our employees nationwide. The NPA account
supports both FNS’ administration of the nutrition assistance programs and the
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion’s nutrition policy development and
promotion activities targeted at the general population. In addition, specific
requests for this account include increases to support continuing work on
MyPyramid and to continue the implementation of an evidence-based system for the
2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. We currently
estimate that nearly 40 percent of our total workforce is eligible to retire
within five years. FNS has received just nominal increases for basic program
administration in recent years, and has required us to significantly reduce its
Federal staffing levels over time. Agency staffing levels are now at a critical
point; we must have the ability to acquire new staff. I believe full funding of
the NPA request in this budget is essential in order to continue our efforts to
improve program integrity and program access. I firmly believe this investment –
less than one-quarter of one percent of program funding – is critical in order
to maintain accountability for our $64.1 billion portfolio and to assist States
to effectively manage the programs and provide access to all eligible people.
Thank you for the opportunity to present this written testimony. Last modified:
11/26/2008 |