An Offer Too Good to Give Up: How DC Can Access Federal Funds for Job Training
The District has a great opportunity to access federal job training funds to help DC residents who are eager to go to work or get a better job. It comes, of all places, from the federal food stamp program, now known as SNAP.
The SNAP Employment and Training program provides federal funds to cover half of the costs of a wide array of employment-related services for people who get food stamp benefits. It can support programs operated directly by the DC government, but it even can bring federal funds to non-profit training providers to enhance their services. SNAP E&T can support education and training for a large share of DC’s low-income population, because most low-income residents receive SNAP food benefits.
Until recently, the District has barely made use of this resource. This year, the city started to take greater advantage of SNAP E&T, but it could be doing even more. For example, the Fiscal Year 2102 budget includes $4.6 million in local funds for adult job training. If that were made part of SNAP E&T, it could be expanded to as much as $9.2 million with federal funds.
A new policy brief from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute highlights ways the District can use the SNAP Employment and Training Program to expand workforce development. With DC’s unemployment still higher than in the peak of the official recession, accessing more federal funds for job training should be at the top of the city’s New Year’s resolutions list.
SNAP E&T doesn’t require the city to re-invent the wheel by creating new programs. The city can incorporate or coordinate existing workforce development programs into SNAP E&T — by identifying participants who receive SNAP benefits and making sure the education or training program is part of an employment plan for that person — and then accessing federal funds to support program costs. To be sure, doing this creates new administrative requirements, but it seems worth it.
DC already is taking some steps in the right direction. Last spring, the District provided SNAP employment and training funds to a number of non-profit training providers for the first time. The city also has raised the possibility of partnering with groups getting workforce development funds from Wal-Mart, bringing SNAP E&T funds to enhance the private funds. And the DC Department of Human Services has initiated efforts to coordinate some programs operated by the Department of Employment Services through SNAP E&T.
These efforts are promising and should be pursued fully. At a time when it is hard to look to the federal government to expand important services, the SNAP Employment and Training program is a precious gift.
DCFPI’s policy brief can be found here.
As former Director of Communications for the D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) 2002-2007, I can attest to the fact that the District via DHS did in fact efficiently access federal job training funds to help DC residents who are eager to go to work or get a better job via the federal food stamp program known as SNAP. Also, DHS’ SNAP Employment and Training program was successful in assisting a number of low-income residents with employment training to the extent that W.Post Reporter Theola Labbe’ wrote a story on DHS SNAP graduates who took advantage of DHS job training at UDC via city’ use of federal funds to cover half the costs of employment-related services for food stamp benefit recipients. The former Fenty administration of course couldn’t have cared less about low and moderate-income D.C. residents and he and his supporters spent a great deal of time forcing D.C. African American low to moderate-income and middle-class residents out of the District of Columbia in every imaginable way. Your article having made suggestion to the D.C. government and Gray administration about SNAP should well have included this fact and very curiously did not do so, I am sure, for reasons entirely obvious to knowledgeable longtime native African American residents and pre-Fenty / post-Fenty D.C. government officials. Given I’ve brought this to your attention including the fact that federal funds being provided via SNAP E&T to support education and training for a large share of DC’s low-income population receiving Food Stamp Program benefits is not new, but obviously ignored under the Fenty administration and, it surely will not be under the Gray administration, I trust you will do much better homework next time to rely a far more accurate and full story.
[...] For more job training money, D.C. should look to food stamps (DCFPI) [...]