NM food banks say they will struggle to provide meals for those who lose federal benefits

State’s high error rate for SNAP could cost hundreds of millions

BY: PATRICK LOHMANN
Courtesy of Source NM

U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, center, gathered leaders of health, housing and food nonprofits to discuss how recently enacted federal cuts will affect New Mexicans, along with how the spending bill will increase prices on health insurance, housing, energy costs and nutrition. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM)

Cuts to the country’s food assistance programs in the recently enacted Congressional spending bill will leave food banks and other charities across the state with less food to feed longer lines of hungry people, leaders warned Monday at a roundtable with U.S. Rep Gabe Vasquez. 

The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which gives low-income families money to spend on groceries, currently provides nine times as many meals across the state and country as the entire nationwide network of food charities, Jason Riggs, community initiatives manager at the Roadrunner Food Bank, told Vasquez and other nonprofit leaders at the roundtable.

In New Mexico, more than 500 shelters, pantries, schools and hot-meal sites comprise the state’s “food bank,” he said, and that whole network provides only a fraction of what SNAP delivers for families.

“There’s no way we can just suddenly multiply everything we do times nine to make that happen. We couldn’t do that in 10 years,” Riggs said. “No business can grow nine times. So any thoughts that, ‘Well, charity will take care of this,’ are very misguided.”

Vasquez, a New Mexico Democrat who represents the state’s 2nd Congressional District in the southern portion of the state, gathered leaders of various nonprofits handling housing, healthcare and nutrition at the food bank’s headquarters to elicit testimony about how the cuts will affect New Mexicans, along with how the spending bill will increase prices on health insurance, housing, energy costs and nutrition. 

Regarding SNAP, Vasquez told Source New Mexico that the upcoming Farm Bill presents Democrats with an opportunity to undo some, but not all, of what the “Big, Beautiful Bill” will do. The Farm Bill sets SNAP funding levels and other food-related policies.

​“Republicans are going to propose a skinny Farm Bill, which is a watered-down version of the Farm Bill. They’re going to want to have some bipartisan support for that, and we’re not going to give it to them unless we get some concessions back on the priorities that we have,” he said. 

Jason Riggs, community initiatives manager at the Roadrunner Food Bank, speaks at a news conference after the roundtable. He said charities like the food bank won’t be able to adequately feed New Mexicans if SNAP goes away. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM)

While he doesn’t think Democrats have enough leverage to make Republicans completely reverse their SNAP cuts or other policies they just enacted in the spending bill, he said one concession he’ll push for relates to states like New Mexico that are deemed to have high SNAP “error rates.” 

The bill currently penalizes states that are found to over- or under-pay SNAP recipients at high rates by making them share a portion of the costs the federal government currently pays to SNAP recipients. In New Mexico, the federal government currently shoulders 100% of the more than $1 billion in annual spending to SNAP recipients. 

But under the bill, New Mexico will have to share 15% of the total SNAP spending New Mexicans receive because of its high error rate. New Mexico’s rate is 14.6%; the national average is 9.83%. 

Vasquez said he hopes to push Republicans to change both the way the error rate penalty is calculated and give states longer grace periods to bring their rates down to avoid the penalty. 

“I think those are common-sense proposals that Republicans should accept, but I don’t expect to reverse a lot of that stuff, considering what it represents to the President’s overall agenda,” he said, which is “to cut Medicaid and to cut SNAP and to give taxes to the rich. Otherwise you won’t be able to pay for those tax cuts.”

States with rates above 10% incur the 15% fee, the highest penalty, which amounts to about $173 million, according to a presentation Monday from the Legislative Finance Committee to an interim legislative committee.

Even though New Mexico faces a big error rate penalty, LFC analyst Austin Davidson also noted Monday that a provision in the bill allows states with high rates to wait longer before paying the penalty. Assuming the state’s rate stays high, New Mexico won’t pay the penalty until October 2028 at the earliest, Davidson said. 

Nonprofit leaders at the roundtable later Monday said that the state’s error rate often comes from systemic problems at the state level, not fraud at the individual level, and mistakes are often quickly caught and corrected. 

According to a presentation from state Health Care Authority officials to the same legislative committee, analysts attribute 35% of the state’s error rate to “agency-caused” miscalculations of benefits or use of outdated information. 

To bring down the rate in New Mexico, Health Care Authority officials recommended increasing caseworker training at the authority’s Income Support Division, along with improving information technology system changes to ensure quality control. 

The error rate cost is among hundreds of millions of dollars the state is anticipating losing in SNAP funding in the state with the highest rate of SNAP recipients.  

More than 450,000 New Mexicans use SNAP assistance, which is more than one-fifth of the population. All of them could see reductions in the amount of assistance, according to the Health Care Authority presentation. In addition, about 40,000 New Mexicans will likely lose their SNAP benefits completely due to new work requirements or their immigration status.

As for retailers, about 1,700 gas stations, groceries, convenience stores and farmers’ markets statewide stand to lose about $1.3 billion in SNAP revenue. 

Ari Herring, executive director of Rio Grande Food Bank, warned at the roundtable that all the cuts and costs facing the state will coalesce into a much bleaker food system for New Mexicans. 

​“We’re gonna see much, much longer lines. We’re gonna see people highly stressed about affordability, and we are gonna have less resources to answer that need,” she said. “It really is a perfect storm.”