Updating TANF Restrictions

State EBT programs continue
to await DHHS' regulations
concerning where TANF benefits
may be accessed.

The EBT community continues to wait for the Department of Health and Human Services to issue its regulations governing the access and use of TANF benefit at certain proscribed locations-casinos, liquor stores and adult-entertainment establishments.


In the meantime, the eGovernment Payments Council's State Forum, under the direction of Vice Chair Cheryl Kagee, has conducted another survey of state EBT directors, the third over the last 12 months, on where states are regarding implementation of the HR 3630 regulations.

Only one state responding to the survey has implemented ATM restrictions since last March, the month following passage of the law requiring such restrictions. All states that have implemented ATM restrictions and which responded to the survey stated that they had implemented the restrictions to comply with recently adopted state laws.

It appears at this point that states that have not implemented cash restrictions are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see the final regulations from DHHS.

Another issue that arose in the survey involved non-TANF cash programs. Some 46 percent of states also use their EBT cards for the distribution of cash from other programs. Nearly 90 percent of those states say that they will apply the same access restrictions  to those program benefits as they will to TANF.

So, nearly a year into the TANF restriction issue, we're pretty much where we were when Congress first asked the General Accountability Office to look into the issue of misuse of TANF benefits. States are looking over their shoulder to Washington, waiting for the other shoe-TANF regulation-to drop. At the same time, they and their EBT processors continue to bat around the best way to implement the law.

Should be an interesting winter. 

Restricting TANF Access

EFTA and the eGovernment Payments Council have provided their comments to the Department of Health and Human Services on the agency's impending rules for restricting access to TANF benefits. To see the EFTA/eGPC comment letter, click here.

eGPC has spent a great deal of time over the last six months on this issue. This included two nationwide surveys, a white paper, and a webinar. Our goal has been to inform the rules-making process so that the rules developed by DHHS actually accomplish the goals of the legislation in such a way that the administration of public funds for eligible households is not adversely affected.

Our fear has been that without a firm understanding of the problem and how public benefits are administered any resulting restrictions on TANF use may be only sporadically effective and could be discriminatory against TANF participants who play by the rules. Compliance with the Section 4004 requirements, as they're called, could also sap valuable resources from the administration of public aid in many states.

We believe that the most effective way to achieve the goals of the Middle Class Tax Relieve and Job Creation Act (Section 4004) is to give states maximum flexibility in developing and managing their own plans that work best for their states and their program participants This is definitely not a situation where one size fits all.

That's how we see it. Check out our comments and let us know if you agree.

Time to Comment on Section 4004: TANF Access Restrictions

In our last post ("Liquor and Lap Dances: Regulating Bad Behavior," April 28, 2012) we discussed the issues raised in the recent Electronic Funds Transfer Association webinar on restricting access to TANF in certain locations. These locations include liquor stores, casinos and adult-entertainment venues.

Section 4004 of the recently signed Middle Class Tax Relief and Jobs Creation Act of 2012 requires states to prohit the use of EBT cards to access TANF benefits in these locations.

The matter is now in the hands of the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. ACF, which administers TANF, is currently engaged in writing regulations to implement Section 4004.

In this short interview, Kurt Helwig, president and CEO of EFTA discusses the difficulty that ACF will face in regulating this complex issue, and the role that states and EBT providers can play by responding to DHHS' reccently released Request for Public Comment, the first step in the regulatory proccess.