The USDA budget for fiscal year 1997 (FY) included $4.2 million to support Food Stamp Program (FSP) retailer authorization site visits to help prevent ineligible retailers from participating in the FSP. This money is being used primarily to fund store visits by contracted vendors, who will provide the information gathered to the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) field office staff making the eligibility decisions.
To prepare for the receipt of this funding, FNS conducted the Food Retailer Pre-Authorization Visit Demonstration and Evaluation. The primary goal was to determine how best to manage and allocate these resources and to determine how to ensure that contractors provide sufficient data to enable field offices to make sound, sustainable determinations of program eligibility.