Federal Policy Landscape Update (July 2025) 

On July 3, 2025, Congress passed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which was signed into law by President Trump on July 4. As adopted, this legislation entails significant funding cuts for federal food and nutrition assistance programs, shifting the financial burden for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to state governments and limiting federal nutrition program eligibility and access. 

Overview of Impacts 

  • Reduced Nutrition Assistance Benefits: In Montgomery County, 29,566 children and 39,280 adults participate in SNAP each month. SNAP expenditures account for an average of $12M in food purchases each month in Montgomery County; eligibility changes will likely significantly impact the local food economy, including farmers markets, grocery stores, and other retail food locations.
    • Program changes effective immediately: 
      • Expanded population subject to work requirements (Able Bodied Adults Without Dependents):
        • Raised age cap from 54 to 64
        • 66,726 current SNAP participants aged 55--64 in Maryland
      • Reduced age for qualifying "dependent" children from 18 to 14 years old or younger
        • 107,307 SNAP-enrolled adults with children 14-17 impacted in Maryland 
      • ​​​​​​Eliminated waiver on work requirements for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth
      • Eliminates eligibility for many immigrants, including refugees, humanitarian parolees, and asylees.
        • Maryland has at least 2,912 refugees, 2,094 asylees, and 2,973 Cuban & Haitian entrants based on FY2024 data.
      • Restricts inclusion of 1) internet expenses and 2) some utility expenses (for households without elderly or disabled members) in calculating eligibility and benefit determination.
        • 118,697 Maryland SNAP participants will lose the Standard Utility Deduction.
    • Limits future benefit amount adjustments to SNAP (and associated programs like Summer EBT) through the USDA Thrifty Food Plan to once every five years (currently revised annually) for inflationary increases only, eliminating adjustments for changes to dietary composition standards or non-inflationary changes to food costs.
      • All SNAP families will effectively experience a reduction in benefits value. 20,000 Maryland households will experience more significant impacts; initial estimates project 8,000 families in Montgomery County will have a monthly benefit reduction of $25 or more. Those with lost benefits greater than $25/month will on average experience a reduction of $150/month. 
  • Increased State Costs:
    • Beginning in FY27, states' responsibility for their share of administrative costs for SNAP increases from 50% to 75%.
      • Maryland's financial responsibility for SNAP administrative costs will increase by an estimated $58 million annually.
    • States with SNAP payment error rates above 6% (all states but seven) must directly fund a percentage of total state participant benefits. Payment error rates measure the accuracy of each state's eligibility and benefit determinations. Effective date and state funding amount is based on error rate in prior years.
      • Maryland's FY24 Payment Error Rate was 13.64%. Beginning in FY28 the state will be required to pay 15% of its total SNAP benefits each year: approximately $223 million annually.
      • A one-time delay until FY29 is available to states with the highest error rates, including Maryland, providing additional time to reduce their error rate. This could reduce the required cost-share percentage to 5 (6-8% error rate) or 10 (8-10% error rate).
  • Additional Impacts: 
    • Elimination of funding for SNAP Education (SNAP-Ed) as of September 30, 2025. In FY25, the SNAP-Ed budget for Montgomery County programs was $690,000.
      • Through partnerships with 37 MCPS schools, Judy Centers, Head Start classrooms, and 9 Community School sites, SNAP-Ed programs support thousands of County students and households to make healthier choices, stretch food dollars, and prepare healthy family meals.
      • The SNAP-Ed Team in Montgomery County is one of the largest in the state -with four full-time educators and 2 part-time program assistants.
        • SNAP enrollment is used to directly certify students for Free and Reduced Priced School Meals (FARMs) and SUN Bucks, and in calculating school districts' federal reimbursement rates in the Community Eligibility Provision, which provides free meals to all students in participating schools. Reduced enrollment in SNAP is anticipated to indirectly reduce enrollment and funding for other nutrition programs, resulting in fewer children receiving free school breakfast and lunch and reduced funding for universal meals district wide.
  • Additional Federal Updates: 
    • FY2026 USDA Discretionary Spending Budget: The USDA recently published an outline for its FY2026 budget, which proposes a $6.7 billion dollar reduction in discretionary spending for the agency. This includes elimination of funding for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program and a reduction of $16 million for Child Nutrition Programs ($34M in FY25 to $18M in FY26). 
    • Guidance Restricting Access to Educational Programs: The administration also released guidance on July 10th that restricts access to educational programs, including Head Start, for children and families that cannot provide proof of citizenship. Head Start programs are in 76 schools in Montgomery County and a key source of nutritious meals for participating children.
    • The Regional Food Business Centers program was terminated by the USDA on July 15th.
    • The President's proposed FY26 budget eliminates:
      • The Commodity Supplemental Food Program, cutting $425M in nutrition assistance for older adults. This program is administered by the Capital Area Food Bank to support Montgomery County residents. The budget recommends implementing a "MAHA" food box program in place.
      • The Community Development Block Grant program ($3.3B), Community Services Block Grant program ($770M), and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program ($650M). Elimination of these programs would significantly impact public and private operational capacity, including Community Action Agencies, for resource navigation support and direct service delivery.
      • $391M in previously authorized Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Woman, Infants, and Children (WIC) funding, sharply reducing the fruit and vegetable component of WIC's food benefits for new and expecting parents and young children by reducing assistance levels for an estimated 94,000 WIC participants in Maryland with a benefit loss of more than $24.8M.

OFSR Efforts to Mitigate Impact

  • Enhancing our assistance navigation network: Strengthening the capacity of all county agencies to assist residents seeking food assistance is critical to supporting residents through loss of benefits. The OFSR has created a new multi-lingual referral resource and is in the process of expanding the Montgomery County food assistance website, refining the MCG food distribution event calendar and 311 knowledge articles, and creating a food assistance referral training for MCG employees and contractors.
  • Expanding retail food access benefits for families: The MC Groceries Program helps families access fresh and shelf-stable food items through a convenient online shopping experience, receiving $100 in benefits per month for each eligible child 0-18 years old, up to $400. n Summer 2025, we partnered with Montgomery County DHHS to recertify almost 400 families and renew their program participation for another year. We will soon launch a limited enrollment expansion for additional households and in FY26 will explore additional innovative strategies to support food retail access assistance for County families.
  • Building nutrition benefit referral pathways: The OFSR awarded six organizations in May with a total of $306,000 through the FY25 Nutrition Benefits Outreach (NBO) Program, supporting efforts to connect residents that are eligible for various nutrition assistance programs (including SNAP, WIC, SUN Bucks, Free- and Reduced- Price Meals, and the WIC/Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Programs) with resources and technical assistance to enroll and begin receiving the benefits they're entitled to. These intentional referral pathways establish local government partnerships with trusted community organizations to provide residents with tailored information, support, and access to critical services, both for new applicants and those navigating changing enrollment requirements, to ensure federal benefits are maximized
  • Renewed Funding for Food Assistance Programs:
    • Earlier this summer, the OFSR launched the FY26 School-Based Food Assistance Program, which will award a total of $2.3M to support projects that address critical food access gaps for families by co-locating food assistance services at approximately 80 MCPS school sites for more than 50,000 children.
    • Later in July, the OFSR will launch the FY26 Community Based Food Assistance Grant Program, which will award $3.5M to community-based organizations (49 nonprofit partners in FY25) to distribute food to residents on a monthly or more frequent basis. Increasing nutritious food supplies for community assistance distributions: The OFSR recently awarded $300,000 to four organizations through the FY25 Food Recovery Network Infrastructure Grant Program to strengthen the local capacity to transport, store, and distribute recovered food. The Food Recovery Network will be managed by the organization awarded the FY26 Food Recovery Network Coordination Grant, which is currently open and accepting applications through August 18th.

Sources 

For additional information, please contact Heather Bruskin, Director, OFSR at [email protected]