TOPEKA — Kansas is set to lose nearly $10.4 million in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding after federal officials announced the state had failed to comply with a request for recipient data. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) formally disallowed the funding in a Sept. 20 letter to Governor Laura Kelly, citing Kansas’s refusal to submit enrollment information that federal officials say is needed to ensure program integrity.
The USDA first requested the information earlier this year, giving the state until July 30 to provide details including names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of SNAP recipients dating back to Jan. 1, 2020. Kelly and Kansas Department for Children and Families Secretary Laura Howard resisted the request, warning that turning over the data could put the personal information of approximately 730,000 Kansans at risk. After Kansas missed a second deadline on Sept. 19, federal officials moved forward with the funding cut and said additional quarterly disallowances would follow if the state remains out of compliance.
The decision immediately escalated a political and legal fight already underway. On Sept. 8, Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a lawsuit against Governor Kelly, arguing that Kansas law requires her to provide the requested data to the USDA. Kobach, who has made the SNAP dispute a central issue in his criticism of the Kelly administration, said the loss of funds will hurt low-income families across the state. Republican leaders in the Legislature have also accused Kelly of covering up waste, fraud, and abuse within Kansas’s SNAP program by refusing to comply.
Kelly’s office has pushed back against those claims, saying the Governor is protecting Kansans’ privacy. Will Lawrence, Kelly’s chief of staff, said the administration will appeal the USDA decision and that filing the appeal will automatically stay the disallowance of funds, meaning SNAP benefits will continue to flow to Kansas families while the legal process plays out.
The Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit has also opened its own investigation into the program, examining whether there are payment errors or misuse of federal dollars. Meanwhile, the courts will decide whether Kansas must comply with the federal data request and whether privacy concerns raised by the Kelly administration can outweigh the USDA’s demands.
For now, Kansas faces the possibility of losing millions of dollars in future funding as the political standoff between Kobach and Kelly intensifies. While federal officials insist the data is necessary to root out fraud and ensure accountability, state leaders remain deeply divided over whether complying would jeopardize the personal information of thousands of Kansas families.
