The economic downturn is creating added pressures on family food budgets and leading to unprecedented demands on both private charities and public programs for food assistance. As we’ve noted in our monthly Numbers You Need bulletins, participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program) has increased every month over the past year and has now reached an all-time high, with 450,000 Oklahomans having received SNAP benefits in March 2009. The Committee was reminded that programs like SNAP not only serve a social welfare role, but also have a significant impact on Oklahoma businesses and communities by providing families the resources to buy food at local grocery stores. SNAP payments in Oklahoma exceeded $48 million in the month of March; since then, the stimulus bill provided a 13.5 increase in monthly SNAP benefits.

Children are especially affected by hunger issues, and several programs focus on trying to ensure that children in economically disadvantaged families are adequately fed. The largest is the free and reduced-price school lunch program, which provides meals to children in families with income up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level. Just under 425,000 Oklahoma school children participated in the program in FY 2008, while just under 200,000 participated in the school breakfast program.

What happens, though, when school lets out? During the school year, an increasing number of schools, in conjunction with the state’s two regional food banks and other charities, operate weekend feeding programs that sends kids home from school on Friday afternoons with a backpack of food.  During the summer months, however, the situation becomes most worrisome. The federal government and State Department of Education administer the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which resembles the school lunch and school breakfast programs in making meals available to kids in low-income families. In 2008, the program served an average of just 11,686 children each day in its peak month of July, or only 1 in 36 children served by the School Lunch program.

The challenge is getting enough sponsors and sites to operate summer feeding programs, and getting the kids to the participating sites to be fed. Sites can be schools, churches, or non-profit organizations running summer programs for children and youth.  Sponsors are reimbursed on a per-meal basis, but there is no funding for transportation, and most school districts, especially in rural areas, choose not to participate in the program because they don’t have enough participating children to cover their costs. (There were 125 SFSP sponsors in the state of Oklahoma 2008 according to this list from the Department of Education; the list doesn’t tell us how many sites were operated by each sponsor).

The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma is thinking hard about how to get more sites involved and children served in the parts of the state they cover. Their efforts are currently focused on providing meals in low income areas where summer food is not offered by school districts. Last summer, the Regional Food Bank served 1800 children in central and western Oklahoma. On the worklist for the coming year is a summer feeding toolkit, which will make it easier and more financially feasible for small schools, particularly those in rural areas, to operate their own summer meal programs. The food bank is looking at planning menus, bulk purchasing food, publicizing food service sites, and providing technical assistance to schools as strategies to get more sites and more kids involved.

The Food Research Action Center (FRAC), a national anti-hunger advocacy group, has developed recommendations for the Summer Food Services Program, along with other federal nutrition programs. They call for reimbursement rates to be restored to 1996 funding levels, when rates were cut 10 percent, and additional funding for outreach and to cover transportation costs. But they also call on Congress and the Administration to “streamline the various child nutrition programs to enable schools, local government agencies, and non-profits to feed children 365 days a year through one seamless child nutrition program”:

The current family paper application process requires a tremendous amount of administrative work by schools and parents, and keeps some low-income families from participating in the program. Congress should begin a process of changing this outdated process. A good place to begin is with large school districts serving many high poverty areas.

This approach is critical. Hunger and inadequate nutrition are year-round problems that are not tied to the school schedule. Our public programs, with the active involvement of community-based organizations and faith groups committed to keeping children adequately fed, need to keep developing more creative, effective ways to rise to the challenge.

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OK Policy will shortly be releasing a full-fledged issue brief that will look in detail at the numbers and what they could mean in FY’10 and beyond. Meanwhile, we have put together a four-page fact sheet that shows how this year’s budget fits into historical perspective, where the money comes from, and how it is allocated among state agencies.(With the Senate’s abrupt adjournment on Friday, some appropriation bills await final passage. The numbers in the fact sheet are based on appropriation bills that have passed both chambers or been voted out of conference committee.)

The graph below shows that Education gets more than half–53 percent–of the total, followed by Health and Social Services. Both of these functions benefited from injections of stimulus funds. These are the only two functions with more money than last year. Other service areas took cuts ranging from one to four percent. Many agencies were cut seven percent from FY’09.

Budgets don’t mean much in themselves. Their importance is in the level of service they establish and in how services are allocated. Thanks to Oklahoma’s rushed and largely hidden approach to budgeting, we can’t say a lot about what this budget means in Oklahoma’s cities, towns, and farms. We’ll all learn more about that as agencies develop detailed budget work plans and as the fiscal year unfolds.

Budgets also don’t mean much out of context. We also need to understand how this year’s budget is different from the last few years,’ More important, we need to look ahead to see how economic and political conditions, as well as choices we made in this year’s budget, will affect our taxes and spending in the next few years.

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Perhaps most welcome and unexpected are summaries of meetings that the Administration holds with interest groups on various subjects. For example, on May 7th, the President’s Special Advisor for ethics and government reform, posted an entry reporting on two meetings the White House had held the day before with advocates for government transparency and from the Chamber of Commerce concerning rules the Administration is developing regarding lobbying on stimulus projects, complete with a list of those in attendance. The same day, Jared Bernstein, the Vice-President’s Chief Economist and Economic Policy Advisor, provided a report on a meeting he held in late April with representatives of labor organizations concerned about transportation funding in the stimulus bill. Again, the blog provided a list of meeting attendees.

Clearly, the blog is an instrument in the Administration’s efforts to prove the sincerity of its commitment to government transparency, particularly as it relates to the stimulus bill. We should assume that the Administration will still get to decide which private meetings it chooses to blog about and which it doesn’t. Still, with more Americans than ever both interested in and able to access what our political leaders are doing, this is a refreshing and timely step in the direction of  open government.

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For Oklahoma, tribal funding can amount to considerable sums of money. For example, in the case of housing, Oklahoma’s formula-based allocation allocated to native housing authorities through the Native American Housing Block Grant is $37.4 million, which is considerably more than the $25.1 million going to non-native public housing authorities in Oklahoma through the Public Housing Capital Fund.

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This time around, the prospects for the Medicaid program look considerably less precarious. The stimulus bill passed by Congress in February made available to the states large increases in the federal matching rate, known as FMAP, on the condition that states maintain Medicaid eligibility rules at pre-downturn levels. Recent guidelines released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spell out the maintenance of eligibility requirements with which states must comply to receive their enhanced FMAP.  In addition to being prohibited from eliminating coverage for any group or sub-group covered under the state plan or a home- and community-based waiver, states are also barred from implementing any eligiblity standards, methodologies, or procedures that are more restrictive than those in effect on July 1, 2008. Specifically, a state may not:

• Institute new or increased premiums;
• Reduce occupied capacity or slots for waiver programs;
• Reduce income or resource standards, or implement more restrictive methodologies for determining financial eligibility; or
• Introduce more stringent or restrictive processes or procedures for determining eligibility.

In other words, not only will states be precluded from reducing income eligilbity directly, they will not be able to adopt backdoor tactics, such as new application procedures, that could keep eligible recipients out of the program.

Oklahoma has already received $174 million in enhanced FMAP and expects to benefit to the tune of perhaps $960 million through the end of CY 2010. This funding will not only mitigate cuts to health care, but is likely to free up state dollars to preserve other essential state services.  In return for this level of investment, the federal government is doing the right thing by making sure that Medicaid eligibility standards remains in place for the low-income populations the program serves.

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Read our four page brief or see this guide from the National Employment Law Project on the various provisions of the stimulus bill benefiting unemployed workers.

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Fortunately, unlike for most of the state’s budget woes, this problem has a simple, tried-and-trued solution, which is to decouple Oklahoma law from federal law for the purpose of calculating allowable depreciation. Twice before, in 2003 and 2008, Congress has included bonus depreciation as part of stimulus measures during an economic downturn. Both times, Oklahoma, facing significant budget woes, has passed decoupling legislation without generating any hue-and-cry or causing any noticable hardships (here is a 2008 paper from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explaining how and why decoupling should happen). With the state facing a budget shortfall in excess of $600 million for the upcoming year, this one feels like a no-brainer.

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A few states are leading the way in creating just such a report. Minnesota’s Management and Budget Commissioner has released a 179 page document (PDF) where each state agency lays out what federal funds Minnesota will or could receive through the federal stimulus – including competitive grants they plan to apply for. California’s Legislative Budget Office has also put out a detailed overview of ARRA which emphasizes the impact that various funding streams will have on the state’s budget situation.

We are hopeful that something similar is in the works for Oklahoma. Governor Henry’s interagency coordinating committee is up and running, and at its first meeting, the governor assigned Cabinet secretaries and agency directors with preparing written reports on opportunities and challenges contained in the stimulus act. This could be a first step in a similar process. In the meantime, OK Policy’s brief may be helpful for folks looking for a basic summary of the kinds and amounts of funding available to Oklahoma.

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Principles: The overall goals of the ARRA are to stimulate the economy in the short term and invest in education and other essential public services to ensure the long-term economic health of our nation. The success of the education part of the ARRA will depend on the shared commitment and responsibility of students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, education boards, college presidents, state school chiefs, governors, local officials, and federal officials. Collectively, we must advance ARRA’s short-term economic goals by investing quickly, and we must support ARRA’s long-term economic goals by investing wisely, using these funds to strengthen education, drive reforms, and improve results for students from early learning through college. Four principles guide the distribution and use of ARRA funds:

1. Spend funds quickly to save and create jobs. ARRA funds will be distributed quickly to states, LEAs and other entities in order to avert layoffs and create jobs. States and LEAs in turn are urged to move rapidly to develop plans for using funds, consistent with the law’s reporting and accountability requirements, and to promptly begin spending funds to help drive the nation’s economic recovery.
2. Improve student achievement through school improvement and reform. ARRA funds should be used to improve student achievement, and help close the achievement gap. In addition, the SFSF requires progress on four reforms previously authorized under the bipartisan Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the America Competes Act of 2007:
   1. Making progress toward rigorous college- and career-ready standards and high-quality assessments that are valid and reliable for all students, including English language learners and students with disabilities;
   2. Establishing pre-K-to college and career data systems that track progress and foster continuous improvement;
   3. Making improvements in teacher effectiveness and in the equitable distribution of qualified teachers for all students, particularly students who are most in need; and
   4. Providing intensive support and effective interventions for the lowest-performing schools.
3. Ensure transparency, reporting and accountability. To prevent fraud and abuse, support the most effective uses of ARRA funds, and accurately measure and track results, recipients must publicly report on how funds are used. Due to the unprecedented scope and importance of this investment, ARRA funds are subject to additional and more rigorous reporting requirements than normally apply to grant recipients.
4. Invest one-time ARRA funds thoughtfully to minimize the “funding cliff.” ARRA represents a historic infusion of funds that is expected to be temporary. Depending on the program, these funds are available for only two to three years. These funds should be invested in ways that do not result in unsustainable continuing commitments after the funding expires.

Reconciling the goals of spending education dollars quickly yet effectively is an ambitious but essential challenge for all levels of government. The fact that federal departments are making a large amount of information available to the public is an encouraging sign.

OK Policy’s brief on the stimulus package provides an overview of all the funding streams contained in the bill for state and local government.

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