Counties across New York are preparing to absorb a much larger share of the cost of running the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program after the federal government eliminated its share of the program’s administrative funding.<\/p>\n
Starting Oct. 1, the change could cost counties millions of dollars, just as thousands of families continue to rely on the benefit to put food on the table.<\/p>\n
“The first phase of the federal cutback will cost Schenectady County about $1.2 million,” said Gary Hughes, chair, Schenectady County Legislature. “That’ll start in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year 2026. If the feds were to go further and continue to not fund SNAP, the total cost to Schenectady County by 2028 would be about $8 million.”<\/p>\n
For decades, the federal government split SNAP’s administrative costs evenly with the state and counties. That arrangement ends Oct. 1.<\/p>\n
Stephen Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, said the shift places most of the financial burden on local governments.<\/p>\n
“It’s 75% funded by county governments in New York and only 25% funded by the federal government. This is a big deal,” Acquario said. “For local taxpayers to be responsible for $170 million more of lost revenue from the federal government \u2014 that’s a big deal for counties to absorb.”<\/p>\n
County leaders say the money will likely have to come from other local services to cover the gap.<\/p>\n
That financial strain is part of why the Regional Food Bank held its first-ever “Volunteer-athon” this week, a 24-hour event running from 8 a.m. Friday to 8 a.m. Saturday. Hundreds of volunteers sorted and repacked food that will be distributed to families throughout the Capital Region.<\/p>\n
Joanne Dwyer, chief business officer at the Regional Food Bank, said demand has grown as federal cuts have taken hold.<\/p>\n
“As we’ve seen the impact of different federal cuts, and especially SNAP benefits for our neighbors, there’s more and more need with people coming to food pantries for assistance,” Dwyer said.<\/p>\n
Volunteers said the need is what keeps them coming back. Renee Hallock, one of the volunteers at the event, said the work feels meaningful.<\/p>\n
“It’s great. You feel very productive,” Hallock said. “I feel like I’m helping feed more people.”<\/p>\n
Fellow volunteer Peg Palmiere echoed that sentiment, pointing to the growing number of families struggling to afford groceries.<\/p>\n
“There’s a large number of people who suffer from food insecurity,” Palmiere said. “Their money’s not going as far as it used to. So they really need our help.”<\/p>\n
The same event was also held in the Hudson Valley. Organizers say community events like the Volunteer-athon cannot replace SNAP, but they can help fill gaps while counties, the state and the federal government work out longer-term funding solutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can’t do the amazing work that we do here at the food bank without the help of our volunteers,” said Veronica Ingram-Henry, the food bank’s vice president of programs. “The volunteers are here, they’re helping us sort and what better way to give back than to help feed your community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hughes said that if the federal government does not fully fund SNAP going forward, communities will need to rely on each other more than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Counties across New York are preparing to absorb a much larger share of the cost of running the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[206,17905,9,24,55,54,49,12,55619,56,87,200],"class_list":["post-350624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-john-camera","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-noah-love","tag-ny","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350624","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=350624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}