LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD Austin, Texas FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session March 5, 2001 TO: Honorable Elliott Naishtat, Chair, House Committee on Human Services FROM: John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board IN RE: HB1959 by Naishtat (Relating to eligibility for and allotment under the food stamp program for certain persons.), As Introduced ************************************************************************** * Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for * * HB1959, As Introduced: negative impact of $(2,490,681) through * * the biennium ending August 31, 2003. * * * * The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal * * basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions of * * the bill. * ************************************************************************** General Revenue-Related Funds, Five-Year Impact: **************************************************** * Fiscal Year Probable Net Positive/(Negative) * * Impact to General Revenue Related * * Funds * * 2002 $(1,428,394) * * 2003 (1,062,287) * * 2004 (1,086,889) * * 2005 (1,079,655) * * 2006 (1,079,655) * **************************************************** All Funds, Five-Year Impact: ************************************************************************** *Fiscal Probable Probable Change in Number of * * Year Savings/(Cost) from Savings/(Cost) from State Employees from * * General Revenue Fund Federal Funds - FY 2001 * * 0001 Federal * * 0555 * * 2002 $(1,428,394) $(1,128,016) 43.0 * * 2003 (1,062,287) (841,454) 49.0 * * 2004 (1,086,889) (860,940) 51.0 * * 2005 (1,079,655) (855,210) 51.0 * * 2006 (1,079,655) (855,210) 51.0 * ************************************************************************** Given the limited availability of TANF federal funds, for the purposes of this fiscal note, General Revenue is assumed as the Method of Financing. Should additional TANF federal funds become available, $300,378 in FY 2002 and $220,834 in FY 2003 in General Revenue costs assumed above could be financed with TANF federal funds. Fiscal Analysis The bill would require Department of Human Services (DHS), to the maximum extent allowed by federal law, exclude the income of a person who is ineligible under 7 U.S.C. Section 2015(f), as amended, to participate in the food stamp program in determining: (1) the eligibility for food stamps of another person who is a member of the household in which the ineligible person is a member; and (2) the food stamp allotment for the eligible person. The Act would take effect September 1, 2001, and would apply to a person receiving food stamps on or after that date, regardless of the date on which eligibility for food stamps was determined. Methodology The department applied a 60.2 percent application approval rate to estimate the number of new applications that would be approved and a 91 percent month-to-month case retention was applied to the resulting number to estimate the average monthly caseload increase. DHS determined the number of current cases that had one or more documented aliens in the household to be 26,478, or 5.6 percent of all Food Stamp cases. In addition, an estimated 68,727 applications are processed per month. The DHS estimate assumed 5.6 percent of the applicants would also have a documented alien. The department estimate included additional time to handle applications and ongoing cases which would require 43 new staff in FY 2002, rising to 51 by FY 2006. DHS assumed a cost of $633,600 would be needed for programming to allow for additional record keeping because federal Food Stamp regulations require that the amount of benefit to the eligible household members has to be capped at the amount they would receive if the ineligible member was eligible. DHS stated that two budgets would have to be run to assure they were in compliance with federal regulations. Local Government Impact No fiscal implication to units of local government is anticipated. Source Agencies: 324 Texas Department of Human Services, 320 Texas Workforce Commission LBB Staff: JK, HD, KF, ML