On Friday, the West Virginia National Guard delivered more than 80,000 pounds of food to 12 different locations, including Covenant House in Charleston. (Photo Courtesy of W.Va. National Guard)

CHARLESTON — Congress is one step closer to ending the federal government shutdown that is heading into day 42 with a vote on a continuing resolution now moving through the process. But West Virginians relying on the program formerly known as food stamps may have to wait longer for relief.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced Monday during a press conference at the State Capitol Building that issues between two different state vendors used by the Department of Human Services are preventing the state from re-calculating the partial Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits that a federal court ordered President Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay out.

“This is another moving target in that there seems to be changes in what’s occurring,” Morrisey said. “Obviously, it’ll be easier to just get the cards back in place, and that’s important. But we’ve looked at every single way…I can promise you I have challenged our contractor to move like the wind, and we’ve been very clear. We need to be able to do this.”

The Trump administration has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court a ruling by a federal appeals court that ordered the USDA to tap available funds and issue full SNAP payments to the states for November, with the high court expected to issue a ruling as soon as Tuesday.

But the Trump administration agreed to issue a partial SNAP payment to the states for November, funding 65% of benefits. In West Virginia, that would be approximately $32.5 million for the state’s 270,000 SNAP recipients.

West Virginia’s SNAP vendor for electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card services is Fidelity Information Services. But Optum State Government Solutions is the vendor behind West Virginia People’s Access to Help (WV PATH), the computer system that manages the state’s family assistance programs, such as SNAP.

DoHS is supposed to recode their eligibility systems to calculate the reduced benefit amounts for every certified SNAP household, with the new benefit amounts being sent to EBT processors in “issuance files.” But issues between Optum and Fidelity were causing delays.

“I don’t have an exact date for you now in terms of partial benefits…We’ve pushed our guys to get that done in the upcoming days. And as we learn more about the exact date, I can let you know,” Morrisey said. “We know there have been some challenges with the vendors, and we’re going to continue to be very aggressive with that.”

Morrisey stressed that the easiest way to get SNAP benefits to West Virginians was for Congress to end the federal government shutdown and restore funding for full SNAP benefits, which would be able to be immediately loaded onto EBT cards versus trying to fight vendor issues in calculating partial SNAP benefits.

“I want to emphasize the quickest way all this comes to an end is for the shutdown to end, because what they say from a technical perspective is that they can more quickly load up the full benefits than any of the partial benefits,” Morrisey said.

Morrisey announced Monday that the state had pushed out another $2 million divided between the state’s two largest food banks – Mountaineer Food Bank in Gassaway and Facing Hunger Foodbank in Huntington – taking West Virginia up to the $13 million pledge. More than 200 members of the West Virginia National Guard have been assisting the food banks with logistics and manpower, with the United Way’s 211 phone service and WV211.org connecting SNAP recipients with food resources.

The $13 million came from contingency funding left over from the COVID-19 pandemic. That doesn’t count the expediting of $1.1 million already appropriated to the two food banks by the Legislature for the current fiscal year.

The U.S. Senate voted 60-40 Sunday night on a cloture motion to consider an amended clean continuing resolution to fund the federal government into January 2026. The vote was the result of a deal between Senate Republicans and Democrats, with a separate vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies likely in December. A vote on the new CR was expected Monday evening, with the U.S. House of Representatives being called back in Wednesday to consider the CR.

Even with the possibility of the federal government re-opening by the end of the week, the appropriation of the additional $2 million by the state to the food banks will help provide assistance to SNAP recipients through Monday, Nov. 17. But if the shutdown continues, Morrisey might have to call the Legislature into special session by the end of this week to pass supplemental appropriations to fund the food banks if SNAP benefits are not restored.

“If I need to call the Legislature back in – and I’ll probably know in the next 24 to 36 hours – I won’t be afraid to do it,” Morrisey said. “But if the government’s going to be open again this week, that should address a lot of the outstanding issues.”