Pursuit's Take
The Recovery Act increased the amount of SNAP benefits by 13.6 percent and provided $290.5 million in funding for SAEs to handle the anticipated increase in SNAP caseloads for fiscal years (FY) 2009 and 2010.
OIG initiated this audit in response to public concerns that several States with high unemployment were outsourcing SNAP administrative services to foreign call centers and that funds provided by the Recovery Act were potentially being used to operate foreign EBT call centers.
OIG found that the Recovery Act did not require, nor did FNS establish, controls to ensure that States using foreign call centers did not pay for such operations with Recovery Act funding. There were only five States that both used foreign call centers and received Recovery Act funds for EBT Issuance Costs. Recovery Act funding for EBT Issuance Costs for these five States is relatively small (about $5.8 million, or 2 percent, of the $290.5 million SAE funding provided by the Recovery Act).