Good morning and uh welcome to this uh special meeting for the Hampton City Council.

Uh I don't often get to say good morning on meeting, so this one is a little different.

So uh our clerk is uh out of town, and so this morning we have filling in our deputy clerk, Tammy Lee.

And so Miss Lee, will you uh call the role, please?

Yes, Councilman Bowman Present, Vice Mayor Brown here.

Councilwoman Campbell present.

Councilwoman Fairby present.

Councilwoman Harper.

Councilwoman Muggler, present.

And Mayor Gray.

Present.

And uh this morning we have just a brief presentation uh to city manager regarding the um SNAP benefits uh and the effect uh uh November 1st on that.

So city manager.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

As you all know, and I'm sure the public is fully aware, uh, the federal government shutdown continues, and uh we're starting to have real impacts in our locality and across the nation.

Um the first of those uh very serious benefits in the financial assistance realm um relates to SNAP benefits, supplemental nutrition assistance program are commonly what people refer to as the food stamp program.

Um the U.S.

Department of Agriculture advised cities and uh states that these benefits would terminate effective November 1st, and that states and cities could not step in to make those up.

Uh, however, Governor Youncan and the team at the State Department of Social Services, along with our local Department of Social Services, have come up with a strategy to make sure our residents who are already on uh SNAP benefits do not go hungry.

Um, so I'm gonna introduce our human services director, Dr.

Tamra Timoney Porter, so she can review for you all and for those watching or who watch subsequently how this emergency benefit is going to work.

Um I do want to also acknowledge, however, as she's coming up that we know that there are other people suffering uh through this, not just those who are already on SNAP benefits, but we have many federal government workers and contractors who have been laid off or furloughed or lost their jobs and don't yet have employment.

And so we are working with other partners in our community, such as the food bank, United Way, and other human serving agencies to see what we can do to expand um efforts for them so that no one in our community goes hungry, and we will update the community and council on that as we get those kinds of new uh mechanisms in place.

But for today, we're focusing on the update to the SNAP benefit program.

Good morning, good morning, Mayor Gray, Vice Mayor Brown, City Manager Bunting.

Um, thank you for the opportunity today just to provide a brief update of where we currently are.

This has been a very fluid process, so I would encourage you just to write the date on the top of your handout because things could change as I'm standing up here.

But as it stands today, uh what I've provided is just a brief snapshot of what the current program is versus what the new program will be.

And so if you will reference your handout, the first thing is that the SNAP program is federally funded, and what the governor is proposing, it has a new name and it's called the Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance or VENA.

So if you just reference VENA, that's what we're talking about, and that's to differentiate the fact that this is not SNAP, but it is an emergency assistance, um, nutrition assistance program, but it is state funded.

And this program is funded from uh surplus funds that Virginia had and allocated to be able to support Virginians that were currently already receiving SNAP benefit.

And so if you notice the current program is all eligible recipients that are both existing and new recipients would receive a benefit November 1st.

However, with the VENA program, they're only working with existing recipients initially.

So that means anybody that was receiving SNAP in October of 2025 will be eligible for VENA beginning in November.

So we do have applicants that applied in October.

Under the current program, they would have received a benefit effect of November 1.

However, because the government is shut down, they will have to determine how those individuals that are new recipients will actually receive the benefit.

And there's a possibility that they may not receive benefit until December.

And so that's a significant change, meaning that people that applied the beginning of October, they felt that they may receive a benefit in November.

However, because the government is shut down, they may not receive any benefit.

And we're still waiting for information from the state as to how that actually is going to be implemented.

Any questions about that part before I move forward?

Councilwoman Muggler.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Just to just to for clarity, um, because the last sentence you said had a particular inflection, they will not receive any benefit, but they will receive it potentially in November.

Is that correct?

Potentially.

When the um governor allocated the additional supplemental funding for the VENA program, he only worked with current existing cases.

And so they would have to figure out how to then include the new cases because that would be a separate allocation.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Other questions.

Okay, so with the SNAP program, a disbursement, the way that it typically works is an individual would receive their full allotment one time per month, either on November 1st, November 4th, or November 7th.

However, with the new VENA program, individuals are receiving a 25% of their allotment one time per week.

So taking a basic example, if you had an individual that received $400 SNAP allocation, they would get the full $400 November 1st, the full allotment November 4th, or the full allotment November 7th.

However, with the VENA program, an individual will receive $100 week one, $100 week two, $100 week three, or $100 and $100 week four.

And it begins on November the 3rd.

So individuals that typically received a benefit November 1st will receive it November the 3rd.

Those that received it the 4th would get it on November the 5th, and those that receive the benefit initially on November 7th will receive that first 100 on November 7th.

And the breakdown, it's always been staggered based on case number, so that grocery stores aren't inundated with everyone coming in at the same time.

And so they staggered benefits a few years ago, and they are continuing to use that same model.

Any questions about that?

I know it's a lot of information.

I have a question about the amount.

So it's $400, is that I see that using it.

This is just an example.

Is that the maximum that uh an individual?

That's not a that's not the maximum.

That's just an easy example because it's easy to capture 100, 100, and 100, but it could vary.

We do have some individuals that may only receive approximately 23 dollars a month.

Unfortunately, a lot of our seniors do have a very minimal amount, and they will still divide that by four from the information that we've received.

And if you could uh you know, I called Dr.

Timona Porter last night just with a quick question as I was going to a meeting, and that is you know, when when we look at who gets SNAP benefits, and she explained to me that it may be uh adults with disabilities and maybe seniors who don't have uh you know uh high income, so but could you just cover you know the the kind of different people who are included on SNAP benefits?

So we may have single parents, we may have uh families that include uh two parents as well as children.

We also have uh senior disabled adults, and so it varies across the population as to who may actually be receiving benefit.

And if I may, mayor, a lot of people assume incorrectly that it's just people who aren't working.

There are a lot of working individuals that make lower wages, but because of the size of their family or the the low nature of their wage, they just can't you know fully feed their family and they qualify for assistance.

So there are a lot of working individuals who are also on food stamps.

Vice Mayor Brown.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Uh Dr.

T on the amounts of SNAP benefits, what's the criteria for that?

How do you how does the department come up with who gets what amount?

The eligibility criteria is based on income that the individual may have.

And with the new program that the government is doing, when you look at the um the weekly uh allotment uh versus the monthly allotment, is that so that if things change uh and we are no longer in the uh shutdown, uh folks don't have to pay back.

Is that the impetus for that?

So it's a two-fold answer.

The hope is that the shutdown will not continue throughout the month of November, and so they are doing a weekly benefit because it is a state incentive program, meaning that they're taking money out of the state surplus funds.

And so ideally, you would not want to drain your surplus if there's another alternative, and so they're doing it week by week.

And the second part of your question, Vice Mayor Brown, can you repeat that?

I just thought that it's going week by week.

So when the government finally opens up, folks will have to pay that money back.

I think week by week is just in case if we do open, there is no um burden on those who receive benefits.

Correct, and they will not have to pay this money back.

This is not considered income, it's um considered a supplement.

So they will not have to pay this money back.

Councilman Ferraman, Councilman Bowman.

Thank thank you, Ms.

Mayor.

Um, again, thank you for as you mentioned that this is a very fluid situation, and we really appreciate all the work that you and um and your peers have put into trying to stay up with this um during this very confusing um situation, and I'm grateful that uh that our people that need this will be able to have some relief.

Um from a communication standpoint, um, I mean, I saw it on the news this morning, of course, but um is it is the state or is our locality responsible for making sure to communicate this because even looking at November 1st versus November 3rd and and um and someone receiving a quarter of the amount that they're used to seeing, how what do you are you aware yet of how this is going to be communicated to the um people that need the that receive uh these funding?

So we actually were in a meeting yesterday afternoon with uh VDSS, the Virginia Department of Social Services leadership, talking about messaging, and so the state is actually preparing a communications toolkit that we can utilize.

Um they are waiting for approval from the governor's office to be able to release that information, but it should include uh social media messaging.

They're also looking at the possibility of using text messaging and email messaging for clients.

We have worked with our marketing department to put some initial information out there, and so the question was asked yesterday in the meeting if we would have any all of our communications that we need by the end of this week, you know, because Saturday is November 1st, and so as a locality, if we do not have enough information, we are going to put something out there so that our clients will be aware of what is going on because this is a significant impact to families, and so we'll be using messaging through social media as well as uh signage in our lobby and making sure that we're communicating with clients as best we can.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Councilman Bowman.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um it's with hope that we don't extend for the full month.

So if VENA kicks in for the first two weeks, and then the government opens back up, will SNAP do a partial payment?

I would love to answer definitely yes, but I don't know.

We are hoping that once VENA ends in the government reopens, that clients will receive their partial or full SNAP benefit, but we just don't know that information definitively.

But that would be the plan, yes.

You're welcome.

Any other questions?

Okay.

Um, and so all the funds will be uploaded to their existing EBT cards, and so we do have some clients that have remaining balances on their cards, and so it would contain the SNAP benefit as well as the VENA benefit, and they would just be required to spend that SNAP benefit first, but they will receive both even if they have an existing balance on their EBT cards.

And so um I've just prepared a little um a few FAQs really quickly.

How long will VENA last at this time the state is prepared to cover through the month of November?

They um are in anticipation that the government will reopen during this time frame.

However, we are not sure.

And so if it does look like the shutdown will remain through the month later on in November, they will give us additional information about what December may look like, but they have only committed to the month of November.

We talked a little bit about this, but what happens if the shutdown ends, say the second week of November?

Ideally, the VENA program would stop, and then the traditional SNAP program would resume and customers should receive at least a partial benefit, but hopefully they would receive a full benefit, but that would be information that we would need to be finalized by the federal government because we can't answer that confirmedly at this time.

Uh we talked a little bit about um individuals being able to use existing EBT balances.

There was information floating around that cards were going to be shut off, but that's not accurate.

If they have an existing balance, they can use those those funds.

We are encouraging customers to contact the 1-800 number to check their their balances before they actually go into the store because any communication that is sent out will not tell them how much money they actually are getting or receiving through the VENA program.

And so we do encourage our clients to check their balances prior to going into the grocery store so they know exactly how much they actually have.

Ums the rules are the exact same.

There are no changes.

We talked about this not counting as income, and uh we talked about um how this information will be communicated to the public.

So again, this is a very fluid program.

I provide updates as often as I get them.

Sometimes you get different messaging in the morning in the afternoon, but I will do my best to keep everyone updated.

And uh just thank you so much for your support for our clients and also for our staff.

We do have staff that are very concerned about what may happen.

Some of our sister localities have had instances in their lobbies with safety, and so I have been in communication with both Chief Wideman as well as Sheriff Bowden, just about some extra precautions that we can take as a department to protect our staff.

City manager Buddy.

Uh yes, I said uh I was gonna uh when Dr.

T conclude, uh address the staff issue as well.

Um, and if you okay, I just want to make clear that there's been mixed messaging about whether the staff that actually process all of these things and not just food stamps but TANF and Medicaid applications and the like are gonna continue to be reimbursed.

Typically, the locality pays somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of the actual cost for the workers, and the remainder is supported through federal and state reimbursements.

Uh we pay up front and we get reimbursed later, but with the shutdown, there's been mixed messaging.

At one point we believed that the state would not continue to support the workers, and now it looks like they will ultimately when the government opens back up, they would get the money and then reimburse us.

But I want to be clear and transparent that we believe uh as staff that we should continue to support our workers, keep them on the payroll, not furlough them for a variety of reasons.

One with the VENA program, they're gonna be questions and needs of the clients.

Um there will continue to have issues that come up relating to Medicaid, TANF, et cetera.

And two, frankly, they're very valuable.

There it's very hard to attract people into this profession generally these days, and our workers are very talented.

We're one of the few localities that actually cross-trains our workers to process all types of applications.

Um, and so we don't want to lose any of them by putting them on furlough.

So we have developed a strategy financially that I've shared with you all that we can support them.

Hopefully, we will indeed get reimbursed.

But if we don't get reimbursed because things keep changing, I just want you all to be aware and and get us clear support that you want us to continue in that way.

If we put them on furlough and others don't put them on furlough, we run the risk, they'll be hired by somewhere else.

And I don't want to lose any of our very talented staff, and I don't want them having to worry about taking care of others while they're worried about are they going to be taken care of?

I think we can do better than what we see happening at the federal level by taking care of our people.

And I think in individual conversations with each of you, you all agree, but I wanted to be fully transparent for the public about what we're doing.

Okay.

Any further questions for uh Dr.

Timeline Reporter or City Manager?

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

So uh next item is uh closed session item.

So I am going to ask the uh deputy clerk to read the motion required for closed session.

The motion required is to convene a closed session pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711 point A point one to discuss the performance of appointees to a local commission.

All right, need a motion.

Second Councilman Bowman?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Brown?

Aye.

Councilwoman Campbell?

Aye.

Councilwoman Therby?

Aye.

Councilwoman Harper?

Aye.

Councilwoman Muggler.

Aye.

Mayor Gray.

Aye.

So we will uh convene in the Lawson conference room at nine o'clock.