Improved Collections Can Reduce Federal and District Government Food Stamp Program Costs

GAO studied collection procedures for amounts owed to the District of Columbia by food stamp vendors for cash and food stamp shortages and by recipients who were overissued stamps.

The District has collected a minimal amount due from food stamp vendors and recipients. Inadequate collection efforts, lack of systems for identifying improper issuances and for monitoring collection efforts, and poor controls over recipient participation cards contributed to the problem. As a result, District and Department of Agriculture costs were unnecessarily increased. The District was not claiming all reimbursable costs incurred in administering the program. Amounts owed by recipients may be written off as uncollectible after required collection efforts have been exhausted. There are no criteria, however, to provide guidance concerning maximum timeframes within which various processing steps should be accomplished, and there is no reporting system to monitor the progress of claims processing or highlight problem claims. The District has not identified and attempted to collect overissuances resulting from duplicate redemptions or from redemptions of expired, altered, and unsigned participation cards. The District's participation card system does not provide control over the cards, results in increased costs, and does not safeguard the cards to prevent unauthorized use. Transaction cards which have been returned by vendors were improperly filed and stored without adequate physical control to prevent reintroducing the cards into the system.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Arthur R. Goldbeck Team: General Accounting Office: General Government Division Phone: (202) 275-3641