The NSLP offers free and reduced-price school meals to students from eligible households. Households with incomes at or below 130 percent of poverty are eligible for free meals, and households with incomes between 131 percent and 185 percent of poverty are eligible for reduced-price meals. Traditionally, to receive these benefits, households had to complete and submit application forms to schools or be directly certified. Direct certification, on the other hand, is a method of eligibility determination that does not require families to complete school meal applications. Instead, school officials use documentation from the local or state welfare agency that indicates that a household participates in AFDC or food stamps as the basis for certifying students for free school meals.
From October 1, 1993 to September 30, 1996, the Food and Nutrition Administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture sponsored demonstration projects in Georgia, Hawaii, Missouri, South Dakota, and Texas to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of operating the Food Stamp Employment and Training (E&T) program under the same legislative and regulatory terms as the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients. Common objectives of the demonstrations were to increase compliance with E&T participation requirements among mandatory work registrants, target services to individuals most at risk of long-term dependency and those most likely to benefit from E&T services, improve participant outcomes, and improve the cost efficiency of welfare to work services.
This study evaluates the Retailer Compliance Management Demonstrations in EBT-ready States. In these demonstrations, the State food stamp agencies in New Mexico (NM) and South Carolina (SC) assumed responsibility for managing the participation of food retailers in the FSP, a task previously managed exclusively by the federal government.
The report is based on a telephone survey of all states with SLEB agreements and case studies of 6 states with noteworthy levels of SLEB agreement-generated activity.