Disbursement of the Summer Pandemic-Electronic Benefits Transfer has gone smoothly, according to the Director of Human and Social Services, Muavaefaatasi John Suisala.
Vouchers worth $889,525 were issued on the first two days, Wednesday and Thursday, to 830 households for 1,964 school children.
The vouchers were welcomed not only by families, but also authorized ASNAP stores.
“Surprisingly, the issuance on both days went smoothly with no major issues,” said Muavaefaatasi. He estimated the waiting time to be about 1 hour and there were no long lines, as was seen last year.
However, some parents faced longer delays. These were parents who showed up to pick up benefits and found that their cases were automatically closed by the system because they tried, for whatever reason, to add additional children on the online portal.
The system automatically closed these cases as a fraud prevention measure.
Director Muavaefaatasi explained that their MIS team here, and off-island, have to reinstate and restore these cases in order for them to receive their children’s benefits without the children that they attempted to add to their case file.
There were also parents who showed up to pick up benefits for their children because the authorized parents, who picked up benefits last year, have passed away.
“These parents were referred to the Dept. of Education for verification to become authorized representatives to pick up and use their children’s benefits at the stores,” said the DHSS director.
Other parents showed up to try and pick up benefits for children whose parents are off-island. They were mostly advised to wait for the parents to return to retrieve benefits for their own children, unless they are undergoing medical treatment.
Muavaefaatasi said, parents do not have to show up right away during mass issuance to pick up Summer P-EBT benefits. They have up until April 14, 2023, to pick up benefits from the ASNAP office so long as they spend the benefits by April 30, 2023.
That’s when the Summer P-EBT benefits of up to $6.4 million expire.
The regular P-EBT benefits totaling $8.8 million that were distributed between August 15 and December 30, 2022, expire on February 28, 2023.
