Molly Beck
MADISON - The Trump administration said Monday it would provide partial funding for food assistance programs that are set to go dormant while the federal government shutdown continues.
The administration reversed itself on whether to release the funding after two federal judges ruled it must use contingency funds to pay for benefits for food programs, including Wisconsin's FoodShare, while the government remains shut down.
It was not immediately clear how the partial payments would be distributed in Wisconsin. A spokeswoman for Gov. Tony Evers did not immediately return a phone call from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In Wisconsin, about 700,000 Wisconsinites receive benefits from the state program known as FoodShare. As of September, the benefits totaled $115.8 million. About 270,000 recipients are children.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture initially advised that $3 billion in contingency funding could be used for administrative costs and benefit payments in the event of a shutdown. But then on Oct. 24, the agency issued a new memo saying funding cannot legally be used for such purposes.
Attorneys general in 25 states, including Wisconsin, and a group of city officials and nonprofit groups filed two lawsuits to compel the Trump administration to use the available funding. The federal judges overseeing those lawsuits sided with the plaintiffs.
Evers on Friday declared a state of emergency in Wisconsin over the FoodShare funding lapse, directing state officials to police price gouging and to suspend state rules that he says would hinder the state's response.
Evers' office said that, unlike in other states, the Wisconsin governor cannot unilaterally spend state funds on federal programs that do not already have an appropriation.
State lawmakers must vote to create an appropriation to direct state funds to the program, or expand an existing appropriation, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Republican leaders of both legislative houses have indicated they are not supportive of the idea.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
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