HELP NEEDED — A worker at Mountaineer Food Bank at a warehouse in Gassaway moves a palate of nonperishable food in June. Mountaineer Food Bank is one of two large food banks in West Virginia receiving state funding to help West Virginians whose SNAP benefits have been paused beginning Saturday due to the federal government shutdown. -- Photo Courtesy/WV Legislative Photography

CHARLESTON — While the governor has announced state funding contributions and sought private donations to bolster West Virginia’s two largest food banks with federal SNAP benefits about to end, Democratic lawmakers said Thursday the state needs to put up more money.

The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is set to grind to a halt Saturday as a result of the ongoing government shutdown. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it could not tap into a $5 billion emergency contingency fund to keep SNAP operating into November.

Members of the Democratic caucus in the West Virginia House of Delegates wrote letters Thursday to the state’s congressional delegation, President Donald Trump and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins seeking the release of the contingency funds for SNAP.

“America is hungry. West Virginians need food. And my caucus is hell-bent on doing our part to feed our people,” said House Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, during a virtual press conference Thursday afternoon. “(The USDA) had and said that they are legally obligated to pay SNAP benefits in a shutdown using multi-year contingency funds. And then in the dark of the night, that just happened to vanish from the website because the president said so.”

“This is the first time in history that this has ever happened,” said Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha. “SNAP benefits have never lapsed, not for a single day since the program’s inception in 1964. So, 60 years of benefits uninterrupted, no matter what. This is unprecedented.”

Some states have either declared states of emergency or allocated funding to their SNAP programs. But the electronic benefit transfer processing services West Virginia uses – Fidelity Information Services – is unable to accept direct state funding towards EBT cards held by SNAP recipients in West Virginia.

“We don’t have the capacity to fund SNAP benefits because the federal government has taken an unprecedented move to stop the system,” Young said. “This is very, very, very much on purpose. So, we can’t directly fund SNAP. The federal government needs to figure this out so we can directly get benefits.”

Last week, Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, announced he was expediting $1.1 million appropriated by the Legislature for the current fiscal year for the state’s two largest food banks – Mountaineer Food Bank and Facing Hunger Foodbank – to assist West Virginia’s SNAP recipients.

On Tuesday, Morrisey announced that he would use up to $13 million in contingency funds to provide those organizations with additional funding, with $5 million going out the door Wednesday.

While Morrisey said the state will use the whole $13 million if needed, he encouraged the public to donate directly to the two food banks, with the state matching those funds up to $13 million. Assuming the public matches the state’s pledge, that could provide the food banks up to $26 million, or nearly half of the nearly $50 million needed to fund SNAP benefits in West Virginia for one month.

House Democrats criticized the governor Thursday for not using more of his available civil contingency funds to send additional money to the food banks or calling lawmakers into a special session to appropriate available surplus tax or Rainy Day Fund dollars.

“It takes $1.5 million a day to feed hungry mountaineers,” Hornbuckle said. “It’s a dire situation. And so, what we are doing as a caucus (is) we are asking to call us in a special session. Whatever it is that needs to be done, we will work together to get this thing done.

“With the deadline on Saturday, there’s a good argument to avoid going into session,” said Del. John Williams, D-Monongalia. “But let’s just get that money taken care of from the governor’s contingency fund. And I don’t think there’s any one of us here who would be against going into session at a later date and putting that money back into the governor’s contingency fund. But we need something now. We need something quickly.”

The Governor’s Office released a fact sheet Wednesday aimed at countering misinformation about the state’s program with the food banks. Morrisey also pushed back on criticisms of the program during a Wednesday press conference.

“I think what we’ve done is very, very positive, and I want to double down,” Morrisey said. “We fully expect we’re going to expend that $13 million, but we don’t know how long the shutdown will go on. What we’re trying to do, though, is leverage those dollars to drive it even further … and turn it to $20 million or $25 million. That’s West Virginia coming together, and I think that makes a big difference and buys a lot of help for people in need.

“We have drained one of the accounts in civil contingency, the $13 million that we have, and we’re going to keep monitoring, because we don’t want people to be hungry,” Morrisey continued. “But I wanted to emphasize that because there are a lot of people that seem to be more interested in political mischief than in ending the shutdown and getting back to normalcy.”

House Minority Whip Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, said Morrisey’s response in his press conference “was to turn this purely into politics.

“He came out and said this is a Schumer shutdown. He went on the radio and said that members of this caucus want to provide health care to illegal aliens,” Fluharty said. “It couldn’t be further from the truth. This is about protecting kids. The only alien that I see around is a New Jersey governor who doesn’t understand West Virginia values.”