WIC

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is intended to improve the health of poor women and children up to age five. The program provides annual cash grants to states for food, nutrition benefits, and administrative expenses--about $3.7 billion in fiscal year 1997. In the past, Congress has raised concerns about the amount of WIC funds that states had not spent by the end of the fiscal year and returned for reallocation to the states the following fiscal year. These funds totaled about $137.5 million of the $3.5 billion WIC appropriation in fiscal year 1995. This report discusses the reasons states had unspent recoverable funds.

GAO noted that: (1) state officials identified a variety of reasons why their states had unspent recoverable funds; (2) some of these reasons were related to how WIC is structured; (3) for example, because the federal grant is the only source of funds for WIC in most states, states exercise caution to ensure that they do not spend more than their federal grant; (4) in addition, because states use vouchers and checks to distribute food benefits, it is difficult for them to determine the program's food costs until the vouchers and checks have been redeemed and processed; (5) some other reasons contributing to states' having unspent recoverable funds relate to specific situations or circumstances that limited program participation; (6) for example, in one state the installation of a new computer system temporarily reduced the amount of time clinic staff had to certify and serve new clients because they had to instead spend time learning new software and operating procedures; (7) having unspent recoverable funds does not necessarily indicate a lack of need for program benefits; and (8) according to all eight WIC directors who GAO contacted in states having FY 1995 unspent recoverable funds, more eligible individuals could have been served by WIC had it not been for reasons such as those identified above.