Oklahoma Human Services is asking lawmakers for a sizable bailout on its food assistance operations, requesting $25.5 million to cover rising administrative costs for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program after Congress rewrote how the program is funded. Agency leaders say the recent federal changes shift a much larger share of SNAP’s operating tab to the states and could saddle Oklahoma with steep new bills if its payment error rate does not come down. Director Jeffery Cartmell told lawmakers the department is already tightening training and supervision in an effort to cut mistakes while it seeks legislative backing.
DHS asked for $25.5M at state budget hearing
The department laid out its SFY2027 budget request before the House Appropriations and Budget Committee and formally asked legislators to approve a $25.5 million appropriation to offset the state’s higher administrative share for SNAP, according to KOSU. Cartmell told the panel that the cost-share shift is scheduled to hit in October and said the agency would much rather shore up staffing and technology than start trimming benefits. Lawmakers pressed for details on how the new money would be used and whether a short-term patch or deeper systemic changes would be the smarter move.
Federal bill ties costs to state performance
Last year’s budget reconciliation package reshapes SNAP funding by cutting the share of administrative reimbursement paid by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and tying a new state benefit match to each state’s payment error rate, according to Congress.gov. The law makes states responsible for a portion of benefit costs beginning in FY2028 unless they keep their error rate below 6%, and it reduces federal reimbursement for administration to 25%, leaving state governments to cover the remaining share, analysis from FRAC warns. Anti-hunger advocates say that combination is likely to squeeze state budgets and force difficult calls about how programs are delivered and overseen.
Oklahoma’s error rate raises the stakes
USDA quality-control figures show Oklahoma’s SNAP payment error rate at 10.87% in FY2024, which places the state in the highest cost-match tier and exposes it to significant new liabilities, according to USDA. Cartmell told lawmakers that if that rate holds, he estimates roughly $250 million in benefit costs could shift to the state. “That is not what's going to happen in FY 2028,” he told the committee, in testimony reported by KOSU. The department cited slow client reporting and a wave of less experienced eligibility staff as the biggest drivers of current errors.
What DHS says it’s doing
OKDHS says it has overhauled training for new eligibility workers, rolled out upgraded fraud-detection tools, and hired an outside consultant to streamline how cases are processed, according to the agency’s SFY2027 budget materials and news release. The department’s release states that fraud-detection tools blocked $3.47 million in questionable transactions, and that investigations uncovered $7.1 million in overpayments and led to 801 disqualifications, which officials argue will help trim future exposure. Agency leaders are urging lawmakers to approve the one-time appropriation while those reforms have time to show results.
Lawmakers will weigh the request in this year’s broader budget negotiations, deciding whether to plug what they see as a hole created by federal policy or to lean harder on structural changes aimed at driving down error rates. For now, the debate revolves around how much the state is willing to spend up front to avoid a much larger bill in a few years.
