U.S. District Court judge hears food stamp backlog case against Alaska’s health department

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason is considering a case that asks the court to make sure the state issues food stamps on time after years of chronic delays. She heard oral arguments Thursday in Anchorage.

Ten Alaskans sued the state in January of last year because they said the Department of Health failed to provide food stamps, also known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, within the time frames required by federal law.

Thousands of Alaskans waited months for federal food aid last year because the state’s Division of Assistance had accumulated a backlog of crisis proportions.

The case was delayed for a year and a half because the court granted the state a series of stays to allow it to work on its problems. Gleason ceased granting stays in February after the state stopped making progress and relapsed into another backlog of food stamp applications.

Lately, state officials say, they have worked through their backlog in applications and are issuing timely benefits. The plaintiff’s latest filing says some people still experience delays.

[USDA penalizes Alaska $12 million for overpaying food stamp benefits]

Nick Feronti of the Northern Justice Project represented the plaintiff and asked the court to grant a preliminary injunction and compel the state to process food stamp applications within the time limits established by federal law and to provide written notice to any household whose food stamps will be late, giving them an opportunity for a hearing.

“We’re here about a preliminary injunction that could stop Alaskans from going hungry,” he said.

Feronti said Alaskans who seek food stamps would continue to experience irreparable harm if the court does not act.

“If we are depriving poor folks, if we are depriving the indigent of their chance to simply get a bite to eat, well, that’s a harm that we cannot repair in the future, even with back benefits,” he said.

Lael Harrison, representing the Alaska Department of Health, argued that a court order telling the state to hurry up would be too vague to be useful. She cited the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which say that a preliminary injunction must describe what it asks for in reasonable detail.

“This proposed order … is not sufficiently specific in terms that the director of the Division of Public Assistance could then know how to apply it and know how to avoid risking contempt through her actions going forward,” she said.

Harrison also said that a preliminary injunction would not solve the issue of delays in application processing that the state is already working to solve.

“The Division of Public Assistance isn’t saying ‘Somebody else has to figure out what we got to do.’ They figured out what they got to do. They’re doing it. You can see the results from it already,” she said.

“And so what more is this adding? What does this tell them that they need to do that they’re not already doing?”

Feronti rebutted that logic.

“If we were in a state where the timeliness percentage was 20% or 10% and the state got up and said, ‘We’re doing everything we could do,’ there’s no way a federal judge would say, ‘OK, it’s all good,’” he said.

“A federal judge’s power does not stop just because the state runs out of ideas.”

Gleason said she would take the matter under advisement and did not give a timeline for her decision.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.