APHSA Annual Report 2018

FARM BILL AND NUTRITION TITLE Every five years the nation’s Farm Bill must be reauthorized, and of most concern to APHSA and our members is the Nutrition Title which reauthorizes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), America’s largest anti-hunger program providing food purchasing benefits to over 40 million individuals. APHSA, along with our affinity groups, AASD and NAPIPM, worked with key staff on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate as they advanced their separate and starkly different Farm bills. The House Farm Bill (The Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018) would impose work requirements for all non-disabled, adult SNAP recipients. Whereas, the Senate Farm Bill (The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018) would leave SNAP mostly unchanged. APHSA has worked closely with Committee staff throughout the process to provide our members’ unique policy and system perspective as the agencies responsible for delivering SNAP benefits nationwide as provisions within the bill were developed and negotiated. APHSA has offered member feedback on some of the more critical changes proposed in the bill, including work requirements and expansion of Employment and Training programs, and provided practical and outcome-focused perspectives on structuring the system to emphasize employment, training and upskilling. We also developed in-depth, widely distributed analysis of both bills, which are available on APHSA’s website (www.aphsa.org). As of this writing, while conferees from both sides have been appointed to reconcile differences in the two Farm bills, no agreement has been reached.

TANF REAUTHORIZATION APHSA has worked with key staff on both sides of the aisle as Congress has once again taken up the issue of TANF reauthorization. House Staff routinely sought our members’ perspectives as they developed their proposed five-year TANF Reauthorization bill that also proposes dramatic changes in multiple areas, particularly work requirements and program outcome measures. APHSA continues to advance principles developed through and with members to advise on TANF reauthorization, including the elimination of Work Participation Rate as the performance measure, stronger coordination across the workforce, education and employment and training programs. The House Ways and Means Committee put forth the House Jobs and Opportunity with Benefits and Services (JOBS) for Success Act of 2018 (H.R. 5861). APHSA developed a section-by-section analysis and response to this bill, in collaboration with members of our affinity group, NASTA, the TANF Modernization Work Group and APHSA’s Leadership Council, including an analysis of how the substantial changes the bill would make to the TANF program and gathering input on how state agencies and TANF customers would be affected. The JOBS for Success Act would achieve a significant overhaul of not only the TANF program but also the TANF block grant as a significant funding stream for providing services aimed at keeping low-income families together by helping them meet basic needs for a healthy, productive life including the promotion of parental employment. The full analysis is available on APHSA’s website (www.aphsa.org).

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