Earlier this year South Carolina and 15 other states opted to not sign a letter of intent to be involved with the Summer EBT Program. This program would provide those who meet certain criteria with an EBT card they can use over the summer with the intent to provide lower income students with food during the summer months. According to Steven Ardary, the states, territories, and tribes who opted in the program will give approximately 21 million children access to food. The Summer EBT program is similar to the Pandemic-EBT (P-EBT) program, with the exception of funding. The federal government funded the P-EBT program. The Summer EBT program requires the state(s) to pay 50% of administrative costs along with other states and the federal government funding the actual benefits. Governor McMasters defends his decision to not sign the letter of intent citing that at some point the state must “get back to normal business” and that the state “just can’t continue that forever, but we’re still continuing all the other programs that we have.” One state senator argued that it was just a letter of intent not a mandatory participation agreement. He continued saying that if they looked further into it and found the expense was too much, “maybe then we could figure out something.”
Recently reported by Claire Weber, some lawmakers pressed to have the program inserted in the House approved state budget, however, this effort was not successful. Even, though they were not successful a representative commented he was hopeful after getting bipartisan support in the SC House. The State Senate also hopes to still add it to the budget before it goes to the governor.
Jack O’Toole reports that McMasters commented he believes the Summer EBT is not needed due to current state and nonprofit feeding programs. The Summer EBT program which was implement during Covid as contingency plan has “outlived its usefulness.”
This issue is ongoing and updates will be reported.
