Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Council Member Restler questions DSS on impact of proposed federal budget cuts
1:35:25
·
5 min
Council Member Lincoln Restler engages in a Q&A session with Commissioner Molly Wasow Park and other DSS officials about the potential impact of proposed federal budget cuts on New York City's social services. They discuss the devastating effects these cuts could have on food stamps (SNAP) and Medicaid, as well as the problematic methodology used to calculate error rates in benefit distribution.
- Restler highlights that the proposed cuts could lead to a cost shift of over $1 billion onto New York City or a significant loss in food stamp benefits.
- Commissioner Park explains the flawed process of calculating error rates in SNAP distribution, which could be used to justify funding cuts.
- There is concern that these changes could lead to more aggressive fraud prevention tactics, potentially making it harder for people to access needed benefits.
Lincoln Restler
1:35:25
Thank you both, chairs Brandon and Ayala.
1:35:28
You both do a phenomenal job.
1:35:29
And thank you commissioner Park for being with us today.
1:35:31
And team, it's always good to see you.
1:35:33
I appreciated your testimony today.
1:35:39
Is it fair to say that the committee markups on the budget reconciliation process in the house, that the cuts to food stamps and the cuts to Medicaid would be devastating for New Yorkers?
Molly Wasow Park
1:35:53
Yes.
Lincoln Restler
1:35:54
Catastrophic?
Molly Wasow Park
1:35:55
Yes.
Lincoln Restler
1:35:56
Okay.
1:35:58
I just we have not heard that from the mayor and or frankly from anybody on the other side of city hall.
1:36:03
So I just appreciate you speaking up and speaking out for low income New Yorkers, for people who would suffer profoundly if these cuts come to fruition.
1:36:12
I think that we just there was a news alert while you've been testifying that the they're delaying the the budget committee vote, and that's only because the far right within the house is pushing for deeper cuts that would be even worse for the people that that we all care about.
1:36:27
I just wanna understand as of the proposal that's working its way through the house, how it would impact New York.
1:36:35
So $300,000,000,000 in proposed cuts to food stamps to SNAP, and part of the way that they're looking to pay for the states to pay more is based on the error rate of food stamp processing.
1:36:54
And my understanding is that in New York we're at approximately a 12% error rate.
1:36:59
Is that roughly accurate for the state?
Molly Wasow Park
1:37:03
Yeah, that is the right ballpark.
Lincoln Restler
1:37:05
And slightly higher for the city?
1:37:07
Yes.
1:37:08
And we represent about two thirds of the food stamp cases statewide?
Molly Wasow Park
1:37:12
Yes.
Lincoln Restler
1:37:12
And so for an error rate that's north of 10%, what they're planning is that we would be on the hook for 25% of the food stamp payments that the federal government currently covers.
1:37:27
Is that accurate?
Molly Wasow Park
1:37:29
Yes.
1:37:30
With the caveat obviously that this is very much a moving target.
Joe Rosenberg
1:37:34
It's fluid.
Molly Wasow Park
1:37:34
Yeah.
1:37:36
Meeting all the same things you're reading.
Lincoln Restler
1:37:37
Yeah.
1:37:38
Just want to make sure that we all understand what the impacts are.
1:37:40
So you testified, and we all know it's about $5,000,000,000 in food stamp funding that we're talking about overall.
1:37:46
So if we were on the hook as state for 25% of it, we're talking about a 1.25 or so roughly ballpark fluid process.
1:37:53
Nothing's been made nothing's even been voted out of the house, let alone the senate, but we're talking about a billion dollar plus cost shift onto New York City or loss of food stamps.
Molly Wasow Park
1:38:02
Yeah.
1:38:02
But I'd also like to take a minute to talk about the error rate process.
1:38:07
It is not possible to get more wonky than this, but I think it is incredibly important for people to understand how these error rates are calculated.
1:38:15
On a monthly basis, they pull a sample of seven, literally seven.
1:38:20
We talked about the size of our SNAP program.
1:38:23
They pull this tiny sample of cases.
Lincoln Restler
1:38:25
Martyrs all time.
Molly Wasow Park
1:38:26
And it is and my colleagues will correct me if I get any of this wrong because it is very complicated, but it is a case that is active.
1:38:34
That doesn't mean a case that was processed in that month.
1:38:38
So when you have an issue, for example, there was a tech glitch and a notice didn't go out eight months ago.
1:38:46
And that happens sometimes it's on our end, sometimes it's on the state's end.
1:38:51
Things happen.
1:38:52
A notice didn't go out.
1:38:55
The fact that notices didn't go out for a month affects an entire year's worth of those samples on the error rates.
1:39:03
They also count client error rates and agency error rates exactly the same way.
1:39:10
Administrator French or Jill, anything you wanna add
Scott French
1:39:14
on No.
1:39:15
That is correct.
1:39:16
A very small sample that isn't representative of actual, also, sort of real time current what's actually happening in the program.
1:39:24
So
Molly Wasow Park
1:39:24
So one of the things that I think is incredibly important is if and when we are talking about these unbelievably high stakes decisions based on this very poor quality data point, like that is very disturbing to me.
Lincoln Restler
1:39:39
I agree with it.
1:39:40
I I think that the other reality that we will be facing if this is enacted is that we're gonna there's gonna be enormous pressure on you to crack down on every single food stamp recipient that may have gotten $3 extra or $5 extra unintentionally or whatever the case may be to drop that error rate because there's a billion plus dollars at risk in funding.
1:40:05
And so we're gonna see aggressive fraud prevention tactics that make it harder for people to get the benefits that they need.
1:40:12
And I think a return to the kind of Bloomberg Giuliani era approach on on this because you won't have a choice to try and prevent that funding from to try and protect city funding.
Scott French
1:40:21
What I will say about the error rate is our focus isn't on the individual clients, right, and being punitive to the clients.
1:40:30
What we're doing internally, because we do want our error rate to be lower, because we wanna get it right first time history of
Lincoln Restler
1:40:35
the agency.
1:40:36
I don't think that's the current policies.
1:40:37
I'm not criticizing you all.
1:40:38
I do think that ten years ago, during the Bloomberg and Giuliano eras, that was how things were approached.
1:40:43
And I don't I think you're gonna see a return to that approach based on the way this funding is structured.