Michelle, a Department of Health and Human Services economic-assistance presenter, told the Senate Appropriations Committee the economic assistance budget request is $547,500,000 for the coming biennium.

Nut graf: The economic assistance section of HHS funds SNAP, TANF, LIHEAP, child care assistance, housing-stability work and related administration. Department staff said more than 86% of the requested budget is paid directly to families, and nearly all programs (except portions of childcare) are federally funded. Senators focused questions on federal-state matching rules, administrative costs, the department’s integrated eligibility system (Spaces) and how carryover COVID dollars are being used.

The presenter said, “Our budget includes $547,500,000 which is about 8.5% of the HHS budget overall.” She told the committee 86% of that total is intended for direct payments to families and about 2% for community partners who support service delivery.

HHS staff described the federal funding mix: the Child Care Development Fund is split into discretionary, mandatory matching and maintenance-of-effort buckets; LIHEAP and TANF are federal grants; SNAP benefits are federally financed through an entitlement mechanism. On matching, staff said components of the Child Care Development Fund rely on a federal-state match based on FMAP, while some buckets (discretionary, mandatory and maintenance-of-effort) are fully federally funded.

Senators pressed for specifics. Senator Davison asked whether the roughly $5.7 million state contribution to the child-care grant is tied to federal dollars; staff replied the match formulas differ by bucket. On SNAP, staff said benefit payments are 100% federally funded while administration is matched 50/50.

On program operations, staff described changes since the eligibility-service redesign in 2023. The centralized mail and customer-support approach now routes documents and calls statewide through a single system (Spaces). The presenter said the department processes 16,000–18,000 Medicaid-related determinations per month and averages roughly 25,000 document scans monthly. She added passive renewals automated roughly 35% of Medicaid determinations during the unwind period.

IT and legacy-system retirement drew sustained questioning. The department requested $2,000,000 in the executive budget for legacy-system retirement (with $1,000,000 federal match and $1,000,000 SIF funding). Donna Auckland, an HHS staff member, told senators Deloitte provided a broader estimate for retiring eligibility systems that “came in just under $8,000,000.” Committee members also asked about a $51,500,000 shift of IT funding from HHS operations into the economic assistance section; staff said that amount represents the ongoing maintenance and operations cost for the integrated eligibility system across the biennium.

Program details highlighted by staff included:
- Child care assistance: request increased to $115,000,000 to sustain changes from last session (House Bill 1540), including quality-tier payments and infant/toddler bonuses; administrative and provider-support dollars were itemized.
- SNAP: projected increase of about $31,000,000 in benefits driven by higher benefit levels and increased utilization, and a new summer EBT (Sunbox) program (the presenter said the state provided $120 per eligible child in summer 2024 and expects to serve about 44,000 children in 2025).
- LIHEAP: request near $59,000,000 for the biennium; department plans to move from an October–May heating season to a year‑round program and adjust benefit matrices to cap family energy burden at about 6% of income.

Senators also asked about staffing. Michelle said no additional permanent positions were requested at this time; she noted HHS added roughly 17.5 positions in the last biennium using block-grant funds. On administrative spending increases, staff said funds support contracted employment-and-training services, transportation and participant supports for SNAP and TANF employment programs.

Several senators sought documentation and examples; Eric Hoss, assistant CFO at HHS, offered to provide a detailed breakout of childcare cost drivers and market-rate survey figures used to calculate provider-rate increases.

The presenter closed by summarizing carryover and one-time items: roughly $18.9 million of SLRF carryover was requested for housing stabilization and homeowner-assistance funds, and the House reduced some executive requests (for example, the childcare quality tier payments were reduced from $3,000,000 in the executive request to $1,500,000 in the House). The department’s testimony concluded without a committee vote on the budget request.

Ending: Senators requested follow-up materials, including Deloitte’s estimate for legacy-system retirement, a detailed market-rate breakdown for child-care provider payments, and further documentation on carryover balances. The economic assistance presentation concluded and the committee moved on to bill discussions.