The federal government has formally warned the State of Kansas that continuing to refuse to comply with data requests will result in funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) being withheld.
On August 20, 2025, the United States Department of Education gave Governor Laura Kelly’s administration and the Kansas Department for Children and Families 30 days to produce the SNAP enrollment data that the USDA originally requested earlier this summer. The state was originally to have produced the data no later than July 30, 2025, but refused to do so, citing ongoing litigation.
Now, USDA is warning that failure to turn over the requested data will result in a loss of more than $10.4 million in federal funding for each quarter Kansas is out of compliance.
The money the USDA is threatening to withhold is calculated as the amount of overpayment Kansas appears to have made in 2024.
“If Department of Children and Families fails to demonstrate compliance with the data sharing requirements to the satisfaction of FNS, FNS will disallow up to $10,439,386.49 for Department of Children and Families’ SNAP administrative expenses for each quarter in which Department of Children and Families is out of compliance with the requirements of this letter, in accordance with 7 CFR 276.4,” the letter reads. “Because the data is needed to enhance the Government’s ability to detect overpayments and fraud in SNAP, FNS has calculated this amount using Kansas’s Federal Fiscal Year 2024 SNAP Quality Control payment error rate of 9.98%. As the Department of Children and Families is aware, the SNAP Quality Control system measures how accurately State agencies determine eligibility and benefit amounts and, therefore, is the best measure available to FNS to estimate the cost of the Department of Children and Families’ noncompliance with USDA’s data request. The amount of $10,439,386.49 represents 9.98% of Kansas’s FFY 2024 total allotments, divided by four.”
In other words, continued lack of compliance by the Kelly administration could cost the state more than $41 million.
The information the USDA is seeking is the qualifying information DCF must use to determine eligibility for SNAP — names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, home addresses, and “all data records used to determine eligibility,” including income information for those currently receiving food stamps. The Kansas SNAP program provides approximately $417 million in benefits annually and feeds about 188,000 people a month, including around 86,000 children.
The Kelly administration has refused to hand that data over, citing privacy concerns and a pending lawsuit against the Trump administration, to which Kansas is not a party.
According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, DCF Secretary Laura Howard said compiling the requested data would be a “significant burden,” and takes months and more than $100,000 to compile.
Why it would take so long — and cost so much — to compile data DCF presumably already has is unclear.
DCF spokeswoman Erin La Row said in a statement that DCF is “reviewing the letter at this time.”
Kansas Speaker of the House accuses Kelly admin of SNAP coverup
Kansas Speaker of the House Dan Hawkins has been vocal in his criticism of the Kelly administration’s handling of the SNAP data, accusing Kelly of covering up welfare fraud.
“It’s been my fear all along that the Kelly Cover-Up would put the entire SNAP program at risk and now sadly, those chickens are coming home to roost,” Hawkins said in a release. “Governor Kelly and DCF Secretary Howard’s refusal of a basic SNAP eligibility data request from the USDA is literally taking food off the tables of the neediest Kansans.”
