FNS is issuing this memorandum in fulfillment of the commitment made in the preamble of the SNAP: Eligibility, Certification, and Employment and Training Provisions of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 final rule to provide additional guidance for state agencies on how to carry out the exclusion of certain military combat-related pay from income for purposes of SNAP eligibility determinations.
The fiscal year 2018 Direct Certification Improvement Grant Request for Applications are available to state agencies that administer the National School Lunch and the School Breakfast programs to fund the costs of improving your direct certification rates with SNAP, and other needs-based assistance programs.
This is the 2017 Edition of Overcoming the Unpaid Meal Challenge: Proven Strategies from Our Nation’s Schools. This best practice guide is designed to support state agencies and local program operators in their efforts to find workable solutions to the challenge of unpaid meal charges.
This question and answer memorandum is designed to provide an overview of policies related to unpaid meal charges and to address common questions FNS has received from state agencies, school food authorities, and local program operators.
The purpose of this memorandum is to strongly encourage local educational agencies to accept eligibility determinations from a transferring student’s former LEA to minimize disruptions in meal benefits for low-income students and avoid student debt resulting from unpaid meal charges.
There has been confusion about how unpaid meal charges must be handled when all collection efforts have been exhausted. To help address these situations, this memorandum clarifies the processes of designating delinquent debt that has been determined to be uncollectable as bad debt and obtaining assistance to offset bad debt losses.
The purpose of this memorandum is to address the need for school food authorities participating in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program to institute and clearly communicate a meal charge policy, which would include, if applicable, the availability of alternate meals.
FNS invites state agencies that administer the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program to apply to participate in demonstration projects that will evaluate the effectiveness of conducting direct certification with the Medicaid program.
The attached Q&As are issued in follow-up to Policy Memorandum SP 50-2013, Release of the new state agency Direct Certification Rate Data Element Report.
This memo is to inform you of recent changes related to data exchanges for the purposes of direct certification for NSLP with SNAP. Please share this information with state agencies administering SNAP and continue to encourage them to fully cooperate with their NSLP counterparts to improve the direct certification of children in SNAP households.