Food stamp team goes the extra mile and gets results

Food and Nutrition, Sept, 1991 by Marian Wig

The doors burst open and into the conference room struts a cartoon character come to life. Complete with a long dress, combat boots, and corn-cob pipe, she takes the microphone and tells the bewildered group she has something to say.

She's not your typical speaker at a meeting of Food Stamp Program administrators. But then again, she's not supposed to be. Her name is "Ma Pat," and while her manner is playful, her mission is serious. She's there to emphasize that the Food Stamp Program is the country's number one defense against hunger, and it's important to operate it efficiently and accurately.

The result of some

creative teamwork

When she's not being dramatized in costume by a good-natured federal employee, Ma Pat is a pen-and-ink character who regularly appears in a newsletter called "Ma Pat Reports."

The newsletter and its colorful cartoon character are named after the group that created them--a team of 10 federal, state, and local food stamp staff called the Mid-Atlantic Payment Accuracy Team (MA PAT).

The federal members of the team are from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office (MARO) of USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). They are: Jim Goodale, chief of MARO's food stamp program evaluation section; Walth Haake, supervisor ofthe program improvement unit; and Marian Wig, food program specialist with the program improvement unit. Goodale and Haake were co-founders of the payment accuracy team. The team's state and local members are from social services agencies throughout the region. They include:

--Mary Jo Thomas, director, division of quality control, West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources;

--Gretchen Rowell, benefit programs training specialist, Virginia Department of Social Services;

--Nancy Pearsall, operations administrator, Delaware Department of Health and Social Services;

-Dex Stannard, former food stamp branch chief (retired 1990), District of Columbia Department of Human Services;

--Jack Martin, income maintenance supervisor, Camden County (New Jersey) Board of Social Services;

--Dan Jeffers, director of training services, Philadelphia Department of Public Welfare;

--Bob McCormack, director, income maintenance unit, Prince Georges County (Maryland) Department of Social Services.

Working together

to find solutions

Working together, team members have mapped out a campaign to identify and promote ways state and local agencies can make sure food stamp benefits are properly issued. During the past 3 years, they've gone the extra mile--literally and figuratively--to help reduce error rates and improve food stamp operations.

They began by taking a close look at where errors were being made, by whom, and why. Then they gathered information on successful strategies used by local agencies with low error rates, and they devised tools, including "Ma Pat Reports", to distribute information to federal, state, and local food stamp managers and staff.

The group, which meets a few times a year, has also taken its campaign on the road with visits to local agencies taht have expressed interest in learning first-hand how to reduce erros. While Ma Pat began as a regional effort, states throughout the country are contributing information and benefiting from the group's work.

The team's work has not gone unnoticed. In fact, in June, the team took to the road for a trip to Washington, D.C., to receive one of the top honors awarded by USDA. In the Department's annual award ceremony on June 12, Secretary of Agriculture Edward Madigan presented a Superior Service Award to the group for the extra effort and creativity team members have put into conceiving of and carrying out their payment accuracy campaign.

Why reducing errors

is so important

The Food Stamp Program is authorized by federal legislation and is available to qualifying households throughout the country. The authorizing legislation gives the Department of Agriculture responsibility for administering the program nationally in cooperation with the appropriate state agencies, usually state departments of welfare or social services.

State agencies work through their local offices to process applications, certify eligible households, and calculate participants' monthly food stamp benefits. In determining eligibility and benefits, state and local staff follow rules and guidelines USDA has prepared in accordance with food stamp legislation.

Miscalculating a household's food stamp allotment by a few dollars may not sound like a lot. But for a family in crisis, an underpayment means fewer food dollars to get through the month. For government agencies, overpayments mean incorrect use of federal resources allocated for food assistance, and with a program as large as the Food Stamp Program, overpayments can easily add up to millions of dollars.

That's why for several years, national food stamp legislation has included provisions that require states to achieve certain accuracy levels or pay sanctions for failing to meet them. If a state's total amount of benefits issued in error exceeds what's called USDA's "error rate tolerance," the state has to account for the misspent federal dollars.