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<\/p>\nBy the end of next year, counties in New York State could pay over $1 billion annually to keep the food stamp program running. Erie County taxpayers will pay about $6.4 million this year alone.<\/p>\n
By Jie Jenny Zou \/ New York Focus<\/p>\n
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This story originally appeared in New York Focus<\/a>, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here<\/a>. Illustration: Leor Stylar.<\/p>\n The cost of helping hungry New Yorkers is about to go up by over $1 billion annually and local taxpayers could foot the bill.<\/p>\n Later this fall, counties across the state will pay more to keep the\u00a0Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program<\/a>, or SNAP, running after a sharp decline in federal support<\/a>.<\/p>\n Over 2.7 million\u00a0New Yorkers are enrolled in SNAP, also known as food stamps; last year, the average household received $376 in monthly benefits. For decades, the costs of administering the program \u2014 from processing applications to issuing benefit cards \u2014 were evenly split between the federal government and states.<\/p>\n States will soon be responsible for 75 percent of program expenses, thanks to President Donald Trump\u2019s 2025 \u201cBig Beautiful Bill.\u201d Starting this October, that will amount to an additional $168 million annually in New York. Beginning in fall 2027, as states start covering a portion of SNAP benefits for the first time in the program\u2019s history, New York will also have to pay an estimated $1.1 billion in direct benefit costs.<\/p>\n Rather than using state funds, New York is making counties pay for most of the increase. Counties, in turn, are likely to pick up the tab through higher property taxes \u2014 or cutting other social services and staff.<\/p>\n New York\u2019s approach makes it an outlier, says Stephen Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, or NYSAC, which represents a coalition of county governments. Just\u00a0two other\u00a0<\/a>states, New Jersey and\u00a0North Carolina<\/a>, are doing the same.<\/p>\n Acquario said the decision \u2014 based on the state\u2019s interpretation of a law that puts New York counties in charge of public benefits \u2014 offloads a \u201cstate responsibility\u201d onto counties, which have fewer ways of raising revenue than the state. County social services departments are already navigating\u00a0fast-moving federal changes to SNAP eligibility<\/a> that have strained their budgets and staff.<\/p>\n The state has tied individual counties\u2019 cost increase to how many of their residents rely on SNAP and the amount of benefits they receive. Under state guidelines, the annual increase could range from\u00a0roughly $27,000 in rural Hamilton County, where a few hundred residents receive SNAP benefits, to nearly $111 million in New York City, where more than 1.7 million residents across five counties are enrolled in the program.<\/p>\n In Erie County, the projected cost increase in nearly $6.4 million; in Niagara County, more than $1.5 million.<\/p>\n The projected median cost increase across the state is about $555,000.<\/p>\n Several counties that spoke to New York Focus set aside funds to cover the cost increase in the last fiscal quarter of 2026, but have not yet figured out what they\u2019ll do next year. More permanent changes, like property tax hikes, require formal approval from local officials.<\/p>\n Many county leaders have been hoping for a reprieve from Washington or Albany. NYSAC, along with counterparts in New Jersey and North Carolina, has been\u00a0lobbying Congress to delay<\/a> the cost shift. NYSAC has also been urging Governor Kathy Hochul to include the costs in\u00a0the state budget<\/a>. So far, neither effort has been successful.<\/p>\n In New Jersey, meanwhile, Governor Mikie Sherrill earmarked $71 million to cover higher administrative SNAP costs over the next year, affording counties a transition period. The New Jersey budget, passed in June, also established a minimum monthly SNAP benefit of\u00a0$95 per household<\/a>;\u00a0similar efforts in New York<\/a> failed to gain traction.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the State cannot replace the loss of federal partnership, Governor Sherrill\u2019s budget works to blunt the impact and protect New Jersey families during this transition,\u201d noted Maggie Garbarino, a spokesperson for Sherrill, in an email.<\/p>\n Hochul\u2019s office did not respond to questions from New York Focus. The governor \u201chas been clear that no state can backfill these federal funding cuts alone,\u201d spokesperson Nicolette Simmonds wrote in a statement. \u201cAs these federal cuts take effect, the State will continue to work with counties and local governments to ensure residents have access to critical resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Counties\u2019 financial burden will balloon even more next October, when states will start paying a portion of monthly SNAP benefits in addition to administrative costs \u2014 a change that could cost New York an additional $1.1 billion annually. The state expects counties to foot this bill, too, says NYSAC, but has not yet disclosed how much individual counties will pay.<\/p>\n New York has a history of shifting the burden of public benefits onto counties, says Acquario. Amid the Great Recession, Albany permanently changed the cost share for\u00a0Safety Net Assistance<\/a>, a state program that provides temporary cash assistance to needy households, requiring counties to cover 71 percent instead of\u00a050.<\/p>\n Property taxes remain one of the few ways counties can raise revenue, but not all are willing or able to do so. Earlier this year, a dozen counties hit a state cap limiting how much local governments can\u00a0increase their levies each year<\/a> \u2014\u00a0which Acquario finds alarming. It\u00a0signals<\/a> that counties are struggling to balance their books, he said, and that they\u2019re likely ill-equipped to absorb additional costs.<\/p>\n Washington County, in the Capital Region, increased its levy by\u00a0nearly 17 percent<\/a> this year, but it estimates that it will have to spend $78 of every $100 it collects in taxes on state and federal mandates such as SNAP or Medicaid, leaving the county with limited room to fund staff salaries and services.<\/p>\n Subscribe to our free weekly newsletters<\/p>\n To cover its increase in administrative SNAP costs \u2014 projected at $574,558 \u2014 the county\u2019s Department of Social Services has kept vacant positions unfilled, leaving a smaller staff with more paperwork thanks to\u00a0recent changes in SNAP eligibility<\/a>. It\u2019s unclear how much the county will have to pay in SNAP benefits starting in 2027, and officials are just beginning to discuss how to cover it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to plan for the worst and hope for the best,\u201d said department Commissioner Duane Vaughn.<\/p>\n In nearby Warren County, the board of supervisors voted to raise the levy by\u00a012 percent<\/a>, exceeding its tax cap. Director of Public Affairs Don Lehman attributed the increase to rising SNAP costs and other surging expenses like retirement and staff health insurance.<\/p>\n \u201cWarren County would greatly appreciate relief from New York State on SNAP costs, Medicaid costs and other unfunded New York state mandates,\u201d Lehman wrote, adding that staff are \u201clooking at any and all feasible options to limit spending and increase revenue without raising taxes\u201d next year.<\/p>\n By contrast, Ulster County is seeking to avoid regressive property tax increases by targeting wealthy residents. A proposed surcharge would raise income taxes by as much as\u00a02 percent<\/a> on single earners making over $250,000 or couples making over $500,000.<\/p>\n Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger called the proposal a \u201cmodest step\u201d toward creating a \u201cfairer system\u201d in a county where a large share of residents already spend at least half their income on housing and struggle to\u00a0afford basic necessities<\/a>.<\/p>\n If the measure is approved by the state legislature in the upcoming legislative session \u2014 Ulster\u2019s state delegates have introduced\u00a0twin<\/a>\u00a0bills<\/a> to implement the surcharge \u2014 the county could raise between $9 million and $11 million annually to help cover higher SNAP costs, including a projected $738,057 bump in administrative costs this October and nearly $8 million in direct benefits next fall. Ulster is also expecting its share of\u00a0annual Medicaid costs<\/a> to rise next year.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryday people simply can\u2019t afford to shoulder a disproportionate share of the cost of funding essential government services,\u201d Metzger said.<\/p>\n \t\t\tposted 22 minutes ago – September 1, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the end of next year, counties in New York State could pay over $1 billion annually to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50,2780,1069],"class_list":["post-334709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-taxes","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Disinformation-Event-Graphics-IP-article.png\"\/)
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