A leader on the General Assembly’s budget panel pledged Thursday to propose a state-funded nutrition benefit for the tens of thousands of residents expected to lose federal SNAP assistance by March 31. Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said she would i ntroduce a bill when the regular legislative session opens Feb. 4, and would urge Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration to get the program running no later than July 1. Osten praised Lamont for recommending $24.6 million in emergency aid to food banks and pantries over the next 18 months but said that won’t be sufficient to protect some of Connecticut’s vulnerable residents. Ensuring no residents go hungry is a fundamental responsibility of society, Osten said. “We have Connecticut residents who are not getting the assistance they need,” she added. “I’m not willing to not try to figure out a way to [help] people eat.” State officials estimate about 36,000 immigrants, young adults, veterans, and people experiencing homelessness are at risk of losing federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits because of new work requirements and other changes ordered by Congress and President Donald Trump. The at-risk individuals represent about one-tenth of Connecticut’s entire SNAP population, and that larger group receives about $72 million per month in benefits. Osten said she believes Connecticut easily could handle the cost of assisting the smaller, at-risk group. State budget surpluses have been huge, averaging more than $1.8 billion or 8% to 9% of the General Fund, since aggressive budget caps were imposed in 2017. Connecticut operated a purely state-funded food stamp program from the late 1990s through 2018 to aid residents that Congress disqualified from federal assistance while reforming welfare in 1996. And Osten isn’t alone in pushing for a return to state-funded nutrition assistance. The United Way, New Haven Legal Assistance and 15 other nonprofits, labor and business organizations and policy groups wrote Lamont and legislative leaders on Dec. 8, asking them to create such a program. But Lamont, a fiscally moderate Democrat, has traditionally been wary of using state funds to supplement programs normally funded by the federal government. When asked Thursday about the prospect of ongoing state spending on food stamps, Lamont said, “I think we have a better alternative [with] what we’re doing in terms of the food banks and Foodshare.” The governor said these pantries “will be able to notice folks who maybe are losing their SNAP benefits, show them where you can get the, you know, food on a ready basis.” To further control costs, Osten said her proposal would include expanding job-coaching services to help as many at-risk residents as possible find work. But some of at-risk group involves people with mental illness or severe autism, and many businesses won’t employ these residents, she said. Osten added she believes it shouldn’t take the Lamont administration that long to create a new state-funded nutrition benefit to replace federal SNAP assistance. Leaders of Connecticut’s food assistance nonprofits — while praising Lamont for earmarking emergency funding for their network — say it only can replace a fraction of the assistance households cut off from SNAP benefits have lost. “We’re intended to be a supplement,” said Jason Jakubowski, president and CEO of Foodshare. “There is not enough food at our food bank, or every food bank in the country put together, to make up for the number of meals that SNAP provides.” And Sara Parker McKernan, a policy advocate for New Haven Legal Assistance, said food pantries are best suited to handle short-term food emergencies in households. “If you go into a food pantry, you’re going to have a limited amount and a limited selection of what you can get,” she said. “To make that even harder, not everybody has access to food pantries because they’re open at odd times. People have to work. They have to pick up their kids. They might not have transportation.” For example, Eastford, a small, rural community in Windham County, operates a food pantry out of the Town Office Building, but it’s open only from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. — and only on the first Monday of each month, according to the town’s website. “It can be very difficult to get to a food pantry to pick up things,” McKernan added. “Having your own ability to pay for food, which you get when you have food stamps — that autonomy is key for people. We need to have a state-funded food assistance program so people can make those choices for themselves.” ...read more read less