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Fully vet food card photo ID plan, JFS officials urge
YOUNGSTOWN
The state legislative proposal to add food-assistance recipients’ photos to the cards they use to buy groceries needs to be carefully considered, with the idea of minimizing any negative impacts on legitimate card users, local Job and Family Services officials say.
State Rep. Michele Lepore- Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th, said she is opposed to the bill, which she said won’t stop fraud.
The recently announced proposal is contained in Ohio House Bill 50, and it is supported by state Auditor Dave Yost, a Republican former Delaware County prosecutor, who sees it as an anti-fraud measure.
Yost is running for Ohio attorney general.
The proposal pertains to electronic benefit transfer cards used under the federally sponsored Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“I’m opposed to the bill because it doesn’t do anything to combat the sources of fraud Mr. Yost identified in his own report,” Lepore-Hagan said.
“If he was really interested in stopping fraud and abuse, the bill should feature at least some of the recommendations he made. Instead, he’s attacking people who receive food assistance, including many people who work at low-wage or part-time jobs, people who lost their jobs, the elderly and persons with disabilities,” Lepore-Hagan said.
“This bill, as Mr. Yost’s own audit of SNAP makes clear, won’t stop fraud. I guess he hopes it will help get him elected. It’s demagoguery, plain and simple,” Lepore-Hagan said.
“This legislation is another step toward protecting the benefits of the needy and tax dollars. The legislation does not prohibit or restrict recipients from using their benefits,” said Benjamin Marrison, director of communications for the state auditor’s office.
Legislators plan to introduce measures soon to address recommendations in Yost’s report, he added.
“It would probably be somewhat of a deterrent. I don’t know if it would be a big deterrent” to theft and fraud, Robert E. Bush Jr., Mahoning County JFS director, said of the photo-ID proposal.
Bush is a former Youngs-town police chief and former assistant Mahoning County prosecutor.
The proposal for a fraud-reporting phone number and website on the back of the card would allow merchants to complete a transaction and then report their suspicions to authorities, he added.
When they make traffic stops, Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers already seize food cards possessed by motorists to whom they don’t belong, Bush observed.
Bush said he wants to minimize inconvenience to legitimate food-card users and needy program beneficiaries.
“You don’t want to burden the clients. They’re burdened already. The fact that they’ve got a card means they’re having problems,”, Bush said.
“We have a number of clients that have authorized reps that can use their card on their behalf,” perhaps to make a grocery-buying trip during inclement weather, he noted.
“If you start denying the use [of the card] at that source [of food], it causes a lot of problems because you do have a fair amount of people using cards that their name isn’t on, but they’re doing it legitimately,” Bush explained.
“I’m sure the state would leave that discretion up to the merchant, and that could easily happen,” Bush said of merchants, who might refuse to honor a food card held by someone whose photo doesn’t appear on it.
“If an individual has the card and the PIN, the person gets his or her benefits, even if the photo doesn’t match the person using the card,” Marrison said.
If the photo on the card doesn’t match its user, the cashier can call the number on the card to report suspicions about its use at the cashier’s convenience, Marrison said.
“The person using the card is not denied use of the benefits,” he added.