Mayor Muriel Bowser says she’s suddenly reversing course on her monthlong refusal to implement a $40 million expansion of SNAP benefits required by law, just as a pair of residents prepared to sue the city over her intransigence.
Bowser officials informed the Legal Aid Society of DC about the change late Wednesday, according to Vikram Swaruup, Legal Aid’s executive director. The organization was just a few hours away from filing suit on behalf of two mothers, Katina Cheadle and Maria Alexis Jackson, who rely on the program. The D.C. Council announced plans Tuesday to consider legislation allowing the body to join such a suit or file one of its own.
Swaruup tells Loose Lips that he views this as a “huge win for our clients,” both of whom stand to see substantial increases to their monthly SNAP checks if Bowser follows through on the transfer, which was mandated by the Council in the last budget cycle. He says they will hold off on pursuing legal action, for now, though he would not rule out doing so in the future depending on how Bowser’s administration handles the expansion of the food assistance benefits.
“I know this has become a big political drama, with a lot of discussion around separation of powers and other big issues, but for our clients, that’s not what this is about,” Swaruup says. “It’s about food, one of the most basic human necessities.”
“Due to major budget shortfalls and workload pressures, in November I advised the mayor that it is in best interest of residents to prioritize sustaining vital human services programs, over administering a new temporary local SNAP supplement,” Laura Zeilinger, the director of the city’s Department Human Services, says in a statement late Wednesday. “While fiscal and administrative pressures still exist, this evening I advised the mayor that DHS will make this program work while we attempt to solve ongoing challenges.”
However, it’s notable that the administration spent much of the past day fervently reiterating arguments that it simply could not implement the SNAP increase due to budget gaps elsewhere within DHS, which administers the program.
That work included issuing a lengthy statement defending Bowser’s decision late Tuesday and organizing a background call with reporters Wednesday so her deputies could once again describe the “spending pressures” DHS is facing.
“We had no way of knowing [when the budget passed] the degree to which we’d need to be tightening our budgets right now,” an administration official said during the call, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive policy issues. The official outlined a series of measures the administration felt was more prudent to pursue over providing aid to the low-income families served by the program and described a series of potential problems with the SNAP increase.
It’s not clear what prompted such an abrupt change, though Bowser officials have said the mayor plans to address the issue at an unrelated press conference Thursday.
The strength of the legal case against the city might have played a role. Throughout this dispute, the mayor has never identified a clear reason why she believed she could avoid spending this $39.6 million on SNAP after a budget amendment crafted by Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George explicitly directed the city to spend any revenues that comes in above projections on expanding the program.
The city’s chief financial officer has repeatedly certified that the city has enough excess revenues to fund the program’s expansion. And Attorney General Brian Schwalb, who would normally represent the city in any lawsuit filed against it, wrote a legal opinion last month arguing that Bowser doesn’t have any authority to ignore the Council’s spending directive.
“Lawsuits don’t get much simpler than: The law says what it says and you need to follow it,” Swaruup says.
The clash over which branch of government had the authority to direct spending is what prompted the Council’s consideration of legal action. Chair Phil Mendelson previously told LL that he believed a suit was necessary to protect the Council’s appropriating powers, though he was optimistic as recently as Tuesday afternoon that the mayor would ultimately implement the program and avert the need for a messy court battle.
Should Bowser make good on her promise, SNAP recipients stand to see 10 percent increases to their checks for most of the coming year. This could make a major difference for people like Cheadle and Jackson, who were prepared to sue and regularly struggle to afford their grocery bills with their existing benefits.
For instance, Cheadle, a mother of seven living in Hillcrest, believes she’d qualify for an extra $175 per month in SNAP benefits if the increase went into effect. She currently tries to get by on just two trips to the store per month to feed the nine people in her household, dipping into funds she receives through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to cover the gaps. A bigger SNAP check each month would help her avoid needing to call on family members or local food banks for help stocking the pantry and free up more money for her kids’ other needs.
“That extra will come in handy,” she says. “Even if it’s not a big grocery run, we’d able to make one more, just to be something to add to what little we have.”