Georgia SNAP renewal backlog almost clear, but more than 23,000 new applications still waiting

The State of Georgia has been working to address deficiencies in its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program since November when federal officials said a backlog of applications and renewals had “severe” issues.

The most recent data, shared with Channel 2 Action News on Friday, showed the official case backlog was still in the tens of thousands, but the renewal backlog was nearly cleared, with only 39 renewals overdue.

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In December, the Georgia Department of Human Services submitted their plan to correct the issues, aimed at improving what’s called their application processing timeliness.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service requires SNAP programs to have a 90 APT. When Georgia was told to improve their program’s timeliness in November, the state had a score of 84.95.

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Data from the USDA and DHS in December reported the state’s timeliness score fell again, down to 69.75, a nearly 15% lower than the previous measure.

A May check-in with state officials had them updating Channel 2 Action News on the numbers. At the time, DHS said they’d gotten the case backlog down to 34,653 applications that were overdue and 855 renewals overdue.

Still, progress has been made as far as working toward the corrective goals for Georgia’s SNAP program.

While renewals overdue fell below 50, the number of applications overdue was at 23,195. While not as dramatic of a decrease as going from 855 backlogged renewals to 39 from May to June, Georgia was able to reduce the application backlog by more than 11,000.

In the most recent data shared by Georgia officials, the APT was not provided.

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