SNAP backlog stubbornly persists for thousands of Alaskans, and the federal shutdown added to challenges
This article was originally published in Anchorage Daily News. Read it here.
The Alaska Division of Public Assistance is continuing to lag in processing food assistance requests on time, new data reveals, amid a federal shutdown and other factors that complicated the application review process in recent weeks.
Fewer than half of the applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program filed in October were processed on time, according to court reports filed Monday.
The Alaska Division of Public Assistance has long struggled with adhering to federal timelines for processing applications for SNAP, a program that serves roughly 66,000 Alaskans. Most applications must be processed within a month, while some must be processed within a week. On average, the division has taken 47 days to process applications in the last six months, according to the court report.
Alaska’s SNAP backlog peaked in 2023 with around 15,000 backlogged cases, exacerbated by a series of factors, including Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s decision to drastically reduce the size of the state workforce charged with processing applications. The state has since been making efforts to reduce the backlog, but as of last month, 3,854 SNAP applicants were still waiting longer than allowed by law — roughly the same figure as the state reported in July.
Division staff said the lingering backlog reported this month is in part due to challenges created by a six-week federal shutdown that began on Oct. 1. During the shutdown, President Donald Trump declined to fully fund food benefits while Congress was at an impasse. The Trump administration repeatedly changed its guidelines as several states, Alaska not among them, sued the administration over its decision not to pay out full benefits.
Federal funding was restored soon after the shutdown ended last month, but hundreds of Alaskans continue to wait months for their food assistance applications to be processed.
As of Nov. 6, the Division of Public Assistance reported that 417 applications had not been processed more than four months after they had been submitted. An additional 875 applications had not been processed for three months or longer.
Through mid-November, Alaska’s SNAP benefits were affected by “a rapidly shifting federal environment caused by the federal government shutdown, court activity affecting federal funding, and disaster impacts from Typhoon Halong,” the division wrote in a report to federal courts mandated after SNAP beneficiaries sued the state in 2023.
But along with unforeseen challenges like natural disasters that destroyed stored food in rural Alaska and actions by the Trump administration, the state also blamed its ongoing backlog on challenges it has been contending with for months, including difficulties in recruiting, retaining and training staff and modernizing its antiquated system for processing applications.
Despite ongoing hiring efforts, the division reported that its field eligibility staff numbered 197 in November, down from 201 in July.
A recent report from nonpartisan legislative finance analysts found that the vacancy rate in eligibility technician positions averaged more than 34% in the 2025 fiscal year, and exceeded 21% in the preceding two years.
Though the Legislature approved 332 eligibility technician positions in 2025, only 218 of them were filled.
The state has undertaken a salary study for eligibility technicians — the first step in a lengthy process used to determine whether the state should increase wages for an entire class of workers.
As state staffing efforts have stagnated, the division has turned to out-of-state contractors. As of November, the virtual call center was staffed with 140 contractors. The state has agreed to pay $27.5 million for the contractors between 2023 and 2026, in an agreement with the Massachusetts-based Public Consulting Group.
Division staff said that though the backlog remains, the division has been processing more applications each month, having completed 23,724 cases in October, an increase from 19,617 in September and 18,755 in August.
“Despite timeliness challenges, the division served more Alaskans, improved client contact through scheduled interviews, strengthened program coverage among eligibility technicians, and advanced modernization efforts that will reduce administrative burden and improve accuracy,” staff wrote.
While the state continues to report the high error rate, it is also asking the federal court to overturn the order that found the state is violating federally mandated timelines for processing SNAP applications. That order requires the state to submit the monthly reports on the processing backlog.
According to a court filing submitted by Alaska’s newly appointed Attorney General Stephen Cox in September, it is up to officials in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to enforce violations of federal law. Since the USDA is in fact taking enforcement steps against the state, including by levying fines for the state’s violations, Cox asserts the court’s additional actions are unlawful.
Attorneys from the Northern Justice Project and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, which are representing the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, asked the court to dismiss the state’s motion. The plaintiffs argue that the state is violating SNAP recipients’ rights under federal law.
Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for later this month.
Changes in federal law
The division is also staring down new penalties approved by Congress earlier this year for states with high SNAP error rates.
The Republican-backed budget reconciliation bill signed into law by Trump in July implements a new cost-sharing contribution requirement of 5% to 15% for states with an error rate that exceeds 6%. The error rate includes both underpayment and overpayment of benefits. In the last decade, the state’s error rate has never dipped below 6%, and in the last two years for which data is available, Alaska had the highest error rate in the nation.
“As the Department prepares to meet new requirements and more frequent eligibility certifications present in the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025), low recruitment and retention may contribute to additional financial penalties for the State in fiscal year 2026 and beyond,” according to the legislative finance report.
The new cost share could increase the state’s burden by millions of dollars annually when it goes into effect. Alaska’s U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, who voted in favor of the budget reconciliation bill, previously said they had worked to amend the bill to delay the implementation of the penalties for high error rates, under the hope that Alaska would improve its error rate before the penalties take effect in 2028.
Alongside new penalties, congressional Republicans also voted to transfer a greater share of administrative costs for SNAP from the federal government to the states, a move that is expected to cost the state roughly $6.6 million in the next fiscal year, according to the state’s fiscal analysts.
The state reported last month that it received approval from the Trump administration to waive new work requirements — also included in the budget reconciliation bill — for the majority of Alaska SNAP recipients. Under the state’s newly approved exemptions, the work requirements apply to SNAP recipients in Anchorage, except Alaska Natives, veterans, homeless individuals, former foster youths up to age 24, people above the age of 55, and households with children. SNAP recipients in areas of the state outside of Anchorage are exempt from work requirements due to higher unemployment rates.
