Ohio and its county governments will be on the hook in the fall for about $50 million worth of additional costs to administer the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and questions are looming about the program’s future.
SNAP, which assists low-income Americans and families, is almost entirely federally funded and has been that way for decades. States have only shared administrative costs. But the program is set to structurally change nationwide over the next few years to cover the tax cuts in the sweeping legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill.
For one, the federal government will reduce its share of costs to administer SNAP in a given state, from 50% to 25%. That means Ohio is staring down SNAP administrative shortfalls of more than $50 million starting in October.
The Ohio House Finance committee advanced legislation Tuesday to cover all of its additional costs and $12.5 million of counties’ $38.2 million additional costs.
Democratic members of the House Finance committee were critical of how that $12.5 million would be divided among counties in House Bill 730, arguing it was not based on needs and covered only a tiny amount of the shortfalls in the biggest counties in the state, like Cuyahoga County.
“While we are grateful that more money is going into the system, this distribution model of going to $1 a county until your bucket’s full doesn't work,” Rep. Chris Glassburn (D–North Olmsted) told reporters.
Could Ohio ditch county-level SNAP administration?
Starting in 2028, Ohio could have to absorb 10% of the benefit costs for its own SNAP program, too.
In 2024, Ohio had an error rate of 9%, which is the measure of its eligibility and benefit determinations. Any state with an error rate higher than 6% will have to shoulder anywhere from 5% to 15% of benefit costs under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act.
In an effort to lower its error rate, House Finance Chair Rep. Brian Stewart told reporters Tuesday he thinks the state needs to take administration over from counties altogether.
“It’s one thing to have a state benefit program administered at the county level when you’re sharing the costs,” Stewart said. “Through this process, we’ve seen, a lot of counties don’t think they should have any share of the cost of maintaining this, and I think that’s just unsustainable.”
Ohio is one of only 10 states that delegates administering SNAP to its counties, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
