Champaign County expects funding deficit for food aid administration

As of April, 3,913 people in Champaign County received SNAP benefits according to Ohio Jobs and Family Services. That's around 10% of the population.(Champaign County Job and Family Services / Contributed )Champaign County anticipates an $81,000 deficit in funding to administer SNAP food assistance.This comes after new federal rules from the Big Beautiful Bill have shifted how funding is handled for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.Those rules went into effect Oct. 1, pushing individual counties to pay 75% of administrative costs for SNAP. Previously counties split the cost of staff and other expenses to run the program with the federal government."50% of those costs were covered by federal government and then 50% was handled locally," said Stacy Cox, the director of Job and Family Services for Champaign County. "Effective Oct. 1, the federal cost share is dropping ... so that original 50%, what we call match, has dropped down to 25%."Nearly 4,00