SNAP application processing win in Hawaii
Posted: December 27, 2011On November 16, 2011 the U.S. District Court in Hawaii granted plaintiffs a preliminary injunction in Booth v. McManaman, a class action challenge to Hawaii’s failure to timely process SNAP applications. The Court found that plaintiffs have a strong likelihood of success on the merits, noting that the state’s timely processing had fallen from 83.7% in October 2009 to 69% in January 2011. Rejecting the state agency’s arguments that injunctive relief should not be granted because the state is taking corrective action, the Court said that a “wait and see” approach is not appropriate since the agency is only in the beginning stages of implementing its new business process changes and the effectiveness of such an effort on program administration cannot be determined.