Jefferson expecting hundreds to lose food benefits

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 8, 2026

PORT TOWNSEND — Policy changes at the federal level are affecting Jefferson County.

The board of county commissioners heard about the effects that changes to policies are having during their regular meeting on Monday.

The first mention of federal policy changes came during the monthly public health and emergency management update from Public Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry and Emergency Management Director Willie Bence.

“An individual asked that some folks are now going to be required, if they are on SNAP or receiving other benefits, that they’ll need to provide proof of volunteerism in order to continue to receive those benefits,” Bence said.

Every organization that works with volunteers will have their own way of documenting volunteer hours so individuals will need to ask those organizations for the documentation, he said.

Berry also mentioned the volunteer hours that will need to be documented due to federal changes in policy governing SNAP benefits as well as Medicaid.

“So there’s been a lot of unfortunate legislative changes that have made SNAP harder to get and decrease some of the availability of funding for families, largely related to HB 1, which was that really large bill that went in last year,” Berry said. “One part of that is a new work requirement for SNAP beneficiaries, and so that’s for every adult on the program who is not designated disabled and who doesn’t have children under the age of 14.”

Increased documentation will put up barriers to people receiving services, which will lead to a reduction in the number of people getting the benefits, she said.

Jefferson County is expecting several hundred and possibly up to 1,000 people to lose their food benefits while the estimated number for Clallam County is 1,000 to 2,000 people, Berry said.

Another way federal changes are affecting Jefferson County is the defunding of public health services. The county is seeing relatively low levels of COVID-19 activity and minimal flu activity but is currently only able to track emergency department visits and hospitalizations for those viruses.

“Unfortunately, our wastewater monitoring has stalled, at least for the last month, and that’s because the state lost their contract with the courier service who picks up the samples to take them to the state lab,” Berry said. “And so this is kind of a small version of what we’re starting to see nationwide. As we’re seeing these efforts to defund public health functioning, things are starting to crack a little bit.”

The lack of funding affects the number of people who can staff the lab, making fewer people work more samples, and that’s making it difficult to have up-to-date information, Berry said.

Another way federal changes are affecting the county is that the Office of Management and Budget is proposing to change what’s commonly known as the Uniform Guidance.

The proposed changes would affect how the county applies for, receives and administers federal grant funding.

“One of the most troubling things I think about this proposal is that grants can be canceled mid-project,” Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour said.

The commissioners voted to approve a letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought explaining how the changes would affect Jefferson County.

The county currently administers federal grants across 56 programs totaling approximately $10 million in 2025. Those funds support services that include the construction of infrastructure, transportation, public safety, public health, housing and social services.

In the letter, the county highlights agreeing with the OMB’s stated goal of creating efficiencies, Commissioner Heather Dudley-Nollette said.

“We really also tried to emphasize in this letter how our county is already providing excellent examples of being good stewards of federal funds,” she said. “And that our assessment across the board of this issue represents a huge awareness that what they’re doing would actually create more work, more costs and basically do almost exactly the opposite of what they proposed to be doing, which is to create efficiencies.”

The letter urges the OMB to do several things:

• Publish a fiscal impact analysis on states and localities before finalizing the rule.

• Limit termination authority and establish clear, predictable procedures.

• Narrow event services requirements to federally funded activities.

• Provide adequate transition time and technical assistance for new requirements.

• Preserve notice-and-comment rulemaking for future substantive changes.

• Extend the comment period by at least 45 days to fully consider these potential impacts.

• Delay implementation of any changes until at least Oct. 1, 2027, so counties have time to prepare.

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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.