Highland County commissioners hear update on SNAP changes

Highland County commissioners Terry Britton, David Daniels and Brad Roades heard an update on policy changes for SNAP benefits from Highland County Job and Family Services Director Jeremy Ratcliff during their Wednesday, March 11 meeting.

Effective in March, modifications to work requirements and exemptions for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will be taking place as a result of H.R. 1, aka the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed last year, Ratcliff said. 

“Prior to H.R. 1, able bodied adults that were age 18 to 54 they were work required, meaning they had a 20-hour per week requirement in order to receive SNAP benefits unless they had an exemption to those requirements,” Ratcliff said. “A few of those exemptions were veterans, individuals experiencing homelessness, parents or adults and children under the age of 18 in the assistance group, or former foster youth under the age of 25.

“States were notified that the exemptions that were to be removed from that group would be veterans, people experiencing homelessness and former foster youth. It also expanded the age requirement from 18 to 54 to 18 to 64, so that's taken effect in March in Ohio.”

In the months leading up to this change, Ratcliff said their agency has been “notifying people that potentially, prior to the passage of that law, would have been exempt to the work requirement” of the new guidance and the fact that these individuals may now have to “meet that work requirement” every month.

“If they're required to do it as an able-bodied adult, they'll be given three months of SNAP benefits in any 36-month period,” Ratcliff said. “You may hear people talking about countable months, meaning you were supposed to prove that you were engaged in work, volunteer service, whatever it may be, during this month. If you did not, that’s one of your three.”

Roades asked how the federal changes have affected the “workload” for local JFS employees.

“There's a group of people that, prior to passage of H.R. 1, we would have just marked them as exempt on the work requirement, and that would have been about the extent of it from our office,” Ratcliff said. “Now there will be a small percentage of population that now we have to advise, we have to track, potentially have to take adverse action on if they're not meeting the work requirements. We don't anticipate hundreds of people being affected, but it will increase it a little bit.”

Similarly, the law also implemented changes in Medicaid work requirements, as Ratcliff said those will take effect in December.

Another “hot topic” is the SNAP error rate in Ohio, Ratcliff said. According to a summary of the bill on congress.gov, one of the changes implemented is “moving benefits' financing from 100% federally funded benefits in all states to a required cost share for states with error rates at or greater than 5% (with the cost share amount based on the rate).”

“We continue to make pushes, trainings, quality improvement initiatives, to bring Ohio's SNAP processing error rate below six percent, which is where the federal government has said it needs to be in order to not penalize statewide,” Ratcliff said. 

Daniels asked how the local error rate compares to the statewide average. Ratcliff said they “don't have county error rates right now, we have a statewide average,” but that they had a zero-percent error rate on a recent review of six cases.

“We just earlier this week had our exit conference for our ME review, management evaluation,” Ratcliff said. “Essentially, it's a program audit of our SNAP program. We processed all of our SNAP cases within a 30-day period 90 percent of the time. That's what we're required to do. Whether they're eligible or not eligible, we have to process that within a 30-day time period. We're 94 percent on that. They only reviewed six cases of ours for errors in Highland County, and we had a zero-percent error rate. 

“There is the next phase of that is the state is developing a more robust way to identify individual county error rates, so I anticipate, potentially, instead of reviewing six, there'll be a larger group of cases that are pulled from various counties currently.”

In response to another question from Daniels, Ratcliff added that county directors are “pushing” ODJFS to advocate at the federal level, pointing out that it’s “a  bit unfair to hold the state responsible and potentially penalize the state for client error” in the statewide average. 

“From my perspective, if we're allowed as a state to exclude client error cases, I think we fall below six percent tomorrow morning and are right where we need to be,” Ratcliff said.

Britton thanked Ratcliff for the updates.

In other discussion:

• Commissioners conducted a bid opening for work on the mezzanine railing at the Highland County Justice Center.

The county received three bids, including from J.R. Enterprises ($136,500); Tat Realty, LLC ($142,000); and Dance Excavating ($172,500). Doug Karnes of McCarty Associates said he would review the bids and make a recommendation for commissioners.

• Britton read a proclamation in honor of Jenna Jenkins, who recently achieved Eagle Scout status. Jenkins was unable to attend the meeting.

• Janet Grothe, Samuel Richard and Taylor Calder of solar developer Innergex met with commissioners. Grothe, the community and government relations representative for Innergex, introduced Calder as “a new team member,” while they discussed recent updates with the Palomino Solar project.

The 200 MW Palomino Solar project, which is under construction, will be located in Dodson and Union Townships in Highland County. Innergex is also the developer of the Hillcrest Solar farm in Brown County.

“Since we last spoke, our contractor, Blattner, had a very successful food and supply drive for the Highland County Homeless Shelter, and we're working with them to do a spring drive,” Grothe said. 

Calder told commissioners that she is working on the “environmental permitting and compliance and community relations side of the Palomino project.”

Daniels asked how construction on the project is progressing.

“It's been a quiet winter,” Richard said. “Obviously, that was the plan. We are going to be ramping up in the spring. This is now a bit of a critical moment because of the wetness, so we're making sure that we're not working when it's too wet, so that we're not causing problems in community. 

“Any concerns or issues that you hear of or that you witness, please make sure that you send that to us. We are dedicated to solving this to the best of our ability. We want to be a good neighbor, so we are going to do what it takes to make you guys happy.”

Commissioners thanked them for the update, as Daniels said, “Thank you for your community involvement as well.”

• Commissioners said they received a notice of a new liquor license application for the Rocky Road Sunoco. No action was taken, pending any public comments, but commissioners said they would decide on a response at their March 18 meeting.

“They're asking for a D-3 permit, which is on-site consumption, and it can extend the hours to 2:30 in the morning,” Daniels said.

Commissioners also made the following approvals, each by a 3-0 vote:

• A $2,500 estimate from Pike Natural Gas to set up gas service at 212 Hobart Drive, Hillsboro, which commissioners purchased last year in the hopes it could serve as both a county maintenance facility and a recycling hub.

• A contract with the Engineer’s Office and Prestress Services Industries of Ohio, LLC for a previously awarded prestressed concrete box beams bid for a bridge replacement project on Panhandle Road.

• A sub-grant agreement with the Greater Ohio Workforce Board, Inc. for the 2026-27 program years.

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