Frustrated with an on-again-off-again promise of SNAP funding, Gov. Ned Lamont says he has authorized the state to pay out the entire monthly cost of the federal food assistance program using state funds.
The money should be available on EBT cards of Connecticut’s 360,000 recipients within four days, he said at a press conference in East Hartford Friday.
“I just authorized — we’re going to fully fund SNAP through the end of November. We’ll see what happens from there,” Lamont said.
Three separate court rulings ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to fund the program using a contingency fund that had been used in previous shutdowns. The first two ordered partial payment and the third Thursday ordered the program be fully funded. Trump and his administration have alternately signaled they would comply and then not. The president said on social media earlier this week that he would not release funding for the benefits, which help 4.2 million low-income veterans, seniors and families buy groceries, until the government shutdown was ended. He has appealed the latest decision.
“This herky-jerky back and forth is driving people crazy. Let’s take care of people. We can afford to do it,” Lamont said.
Lamont initially allocated $3 million to Foodshare to help supply food banks around the state with food to distribute to recipients who had run out of SNAP money. The total cost of the program for a month in Connecticut is $72 million and legislators criticized the governor for not doing more. Lamont later said he had with lawmakers agreed to put aside $500 million to address federal cuts, potentially including SNAP funding.
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When asked what changed to inspire the move to fully fund the program, Lamont said, “The constant back and forth. I thought we were going to have it fully funded three days ago. I thought the courts said you were going to get partial funding. They can’t make up their mind. We made up our mind. We’re going to take care of the people on SNAP.”
The money will come from Connecticut’s large surplus, generated by the state collecting more income taxes than expected from capital gains when the stock market soars. State Comptroller Sean Scanlon on Nov. 3 said fiscal year 2025 yielded $1.9 billion in surplus and he anticipated a General Fund surplus of $322.3 million and a Special Transportation Fund surplus of $14 million.
More than 360,000 people in Connecticut rely on SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to put food on the table, including 120,000 children. Funding for the program was not renewed Nov. 1 due to the federal government shutdown. Since then, food pantries have been struggling to meet the need.
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