D.C. is facing a $4.4 million penalty from the federal government due to persistent errors in processing critical food assistance benefits that thousands of Washingtonians rely on, once again putting in sharp focus the challenges the District has had in responding to high demand for public benefits.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture notified D.C. officials in a letter Friday that it was issuing the fine because for the second consecutive year, the District far exceeded what federal officials consider an acceptable error rate in processing benefits in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). In 20 percent of cases, D.C. overpaid or underpaid benefits to SNAP recipients, according to USDA data, placing it among the worst-performing states or territories nationwide. USDA assesses a penalty if the payment error rate exceeds 6 percent, and a national performance standard, for two years in a row.

“SNAP is a critical lifeline for millions of low-income Americans, providing essential nutrition assistance to help families put food on the table,” Kumar Chandran, acting undersecretary of USDA’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services department, wrote to Laura Zeilinger, director of D.C.’s Department of Human Services, which administers SNAP. “The District of Columbia’s proper administration of SNAP is essential to ensuring the Program operates efficiently, effectively, and with integrity.”

On Tuesday, Zeilinger and Wayne Turnage, deputy mayor of health and human services, appeared at a D.C. Council hearing probing what is driving the city’s high error rates and what the department is doing about it. Turnage said that if lawmakers were expecting perfection, that would never happen — but he said officials are continuing to work to make improvements. He described the city’s benefits system, known as the D.C. Access System, as performing “fairly well” in the big picture, considering it not only handles SNAP beneficiaries but also the Temporary Assistance For Needy Families program and about 300,000 Medicaid enrollees. “Half the city,” he stressed.

Though 20 percent of SNAP cases had errors, “that means 80 percent of [cases] are not in error. So the system is not tremendously flawed,” Turnage said. “It is not perfect, but is doing a lot because a lot is being asked of it.”

The errors and delays have worried various council members because of the impact on the city’s poorest residents, who can go months without access to health-care or food-assistance benefits because of mistakes by agency case workers or in the computer system. Lawmakers have been all the more rankled by the problems considering that developing the D.C. Access System has so far cost taxpayers more than $600 million. “More costly than a baseball stadium, but more valuable than a baseball stadium,” as Turnage described it. “Three baseball stadiums,” added council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large), who held Tuesday’s hearing jointly with council member Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large).

Henderson and White said it was concerning to have the city facing financial penalties for poor performance particularly on the heels of a tight budget season. Now officials will have to find money to pay the fine. In an interview after the hearing, White appeared exasperated, saying he was “getting pretty tired of this,” particularly given the big price tag for the technology and the benefits programs.

“We won’t see improvements until there is a very clear strategic plan,” White said. “I mean, you have a massive issue with technology that District taxpayers paid $600 million for. And the answer is, we’re doing stuff and we’re going to keep doing stuff. That’s just not going to move us in the right direction.”

Federal authorities allow for different avenues to pay the fine, including allowing the city to reinvest half of the penalty toward taking steps to improve the SNAP system. Zeilinger told White and Henderson that the city would select this option and work with USDA to determine a path forward. She said it was not immediately clear where the money would come from to pay the other half of the fine and officials would need to work with the city budget office.

SNAP has been in the spotlight over the past year, particularly as the council has fought to enhance benefits for the roughly 140,000 families who rely on them, leading to clashes with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). Zeilinger and Turnage described an overburdened system and staff who struggle to respond to the demand in a timely fashion, requiring vast overtime and Saturday shifts for a team playing catch-up on the paperwork. The Department of Human Services saw a 40 percent increase in demand for benefits during the pandemic, Zeilinger said. As of 2022, D.C. had the slowest processing rate for SNAP applications in the nation, though Zeilinger also described improvements the agency has made since last year in timeliness.

“We know that we’re still not where we would like to be,” Zeilinger said. “We have first and foremost made our priority on improving our timeliness — we know the importance that people need their benefits as soon as possible.”

Advocates and lawyers who work with families who rely on public benefits described “potentially disastrous consequences” if people can’t access the assistance when they need it, as Haley Hoff with Legal Aid DC put it. She said that typically DHS is not even aware of errors in recipients’ cases when they are applying, trying to recertify, or reporting changes in their family or income unless the recipient brings it to officials’ attention. By then, months may have elapsed, and DHS may have blown past legal deadlines.

“Even when these errors are corrected, potentially months later, the impacted recipients and their families are not made whole,” Hoff said. “District residents go hungry when [the D.C. Access System] prevents them from obtaining their full SNAP entitlement.”

Many impacted residents seek help from advocates or lawyers when they can’t figure out what’s going on. Allison Miles-Lee, managing attorney at Bread for the City, said in the case of one of their clients, a woman took in her niece and nephew after their mother died. The woman, who had two children of her own and required food assistance, immediately reported the change in her household size so she could receive additional benefits — but it took 18 months and several court hearings before the change was approved, requiring thousands of dollars in back payments to the family, Miles-Lee said.

“District residents should not require legal representation in order to secure their benefits,” added Swapna Yeluri, a senior staff attorney at the Legal Counsel for the Elderly.

Turnage said that the department is focused on trying to identify whether certain prevalent errors are problems with the computer system or with staffers. “And when we do that, we make good progress toward fixing it,” he said, noting that solutions may entail either enhancing technology or better training case workers.

The department put together a corrective action plan for federal authorities in November — but both the federal officials, and White and Henderson said they want the agency to move more quickly and see more detailed strategies. “Part of me doesn’t feel a sense of urgency,” Henderson said.

White requested a document that would lay out the specific underlying causes of SNAP processing errors, including the data and metrics officials are using to identify and solve the problems, by the end of the month. “I don’t want to let them skate on this,” White said in an interview. “This is complex, but if you can’t handle it, let’s find someone who can.”

In the meantime, Turnage said that he was continuing to personally field calls, texts and emails from public benefits recipients who are having problems if that is what it took. He gives out his cellphone number regularly, he said, and sometimes fields complaints as late as 1 a.m. He said in every case, he immediately notifies DHS staff to fix the person’s problem by the end of the day. “That is not the way we build a solution system. But it’s the solution I use when I hear a problem,” Turnage said.

Henderson commended Turnage for his responsiveness. But she agreed: It was far from a permanent solution.