FNS Documents & Resources

This is to advise you that we are expanding our criteria for the approval of waivers of the face-to-face interview at both initial and recertification. We also wish to note that since state agencies already may waive the face-to-face interview on an individual case basis based on a finding of hardship, we are now categorizing these waivers as waivers of the requirement that state agencies document hardship prior to utilizing alternatives to the face-to-face interview.

This report – the latest in an annual series – presents estimates of the percentage of eligible persons, by state, who participated in the Food Stamp Program in an average month in fiscal year 2004 and in the two previous years. This report also presents estimates of state participation rates for eligible “working poor” individuals (persons in households with earnings) over the same period. 

Attached is a Q&A fact sheet that answers questions and provides further guidance on the new racial/ethnic data collection and the new FNS-101 reporting. The July 31, 2006, memorandum offers further policy guidance on this regulation.

Local educational agencies must verify applications in accordance with the procedures set forth in the above-cited memorandum. The above change will affect the reporting for Item 6 on the FNS-742, School Food Authority Verification Summary Report.

FSP legislative and regulatory provisions do not, either directly or indirectly, address the treatment of gift cards for program purposes. While these rules can potentially be interpreted to count gift cards as a resource, we believe this would be inadvisable since attempts to verify the existence and value of the cards during the certification process would be extremely difficult, problematic and subject to error.

The Food and Nutrition Service is extending the public comment period on the proposed rule entitled “Management of Donated Foods in Child Nutrition Programs, the Nutrition Services Incentive Program, and Charitable Institutions."

This final rule amends a number of existing provisions in the WIC program regulations to address issues raised by WIC state agencies, other members of the WIC community, and the US Government Accountability Office. This final rule also incorporates recent legislation and certain longstanding program policies and state agency practices into the regulations. Further, the final rule also streamlines certain requirements in the regulations.

This report provides information about the demographic and economic circumstances of food stamp households in fiscal year 2005. The report draws on data for households participating in the Food Stamp Program under normal rules and thus does not include information about those who received disaster assistance after the Gulf Coast hurricanes in October 2004 and September 2005.

This report presents a comprehensive and systematic national description of food stamp nutrition education operations in FY 2004. It also provides a comparison of those operations to the standards of excellence for nutrition education developed as the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Guiding Principles, released by FNS in September 2005.

Protecting the confidentiality of food stamp applicants and participants has been an important component of the Food Stamp Program since its inception. While FNS has been aware for some time that a number of state agencies have been making use of group interviews in order to simplify office operations, recently regional pffices also have asked for guidance on various ways that group interviews might be conducted in their states.