California Department of Social Services - State Hearings Division
Notes from the Training Bureau - October 30, 2002

Reference: 7 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 273.9(b)(2), (d)(6)

There are two policy changes in the food stamp program discussed in this ACL.

Effective October 1, 2002, counties are not required to prorate the standard utility allowance (SUA) if a person who is an excluded household member shares utility expenses. The full SUA is allowed. For example, if an ineligible noncitizen mother with two children who receive CalWORKs and food stamps contributes to the utility expenses, the household of two children receives the full $206 SUA.

However, if a two-person household shares utility expenses with an unrelated adult who purchases and prepares food separately, the two-person household receives only half the $206 SUA (or a $103 utility allowance) regardless of whether the unrelated adult receives food stamps.

Note: Example 6b on page 6 of this ACL is incorrect. That example says the household is entitled to receive a $206 SUA instead of $103 in an example such as the one above. An errata to 02-55 dated August 13, 2002 corrects the error in example 6b.

Effective February 1, 2002, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began offsetting Social Security Administration payments to collect claims for unpaid federal taxes. For food stamp purposes, the income that is intercepted by the IRS is treated as income.