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Oklahoma Destroys Last USDA Paper Food Stamps
OKLAHOMA CAPITOL -- Two Oklahoma Department of Human Services employees and one retired employee were on-hand Tuesday to cancel and destroy the last of $178,062 in paper Food Stamps issued to Oklahoma as the U.S. Department of Agriculture rolls the nation over to the electronic age of food value distribution. This action depleted all paper food stamp issued by Oklahoma to citizens.
Wanzetta Woody, Robert Mayes and retired OKDHS employee Larry Burton, recalled the good times and the challenges they faced during their combined 75 years of working in the OKDHS Finance Division’s Food Stamp Distribution Section. The assignment three decades ago ― hand-stuffing food stamp coupon books into thousands of envelops every month. A machine was purchased in 1979 that could automatically stuff envelopes with the right amount of food stamps coupons, according to Burton.
OKDHS Director Howard H. Hendrick said, “These three represent countless others and they are to be commended for their tireless efforts to maintain the highest professionalism and integrity in our food stamp distribution program. They have individually handled hundreds of millions of dollars through the years, making sure that the right clients received them in a timely manner. There character has been above reproach. And now they are providing the best customer service we offer clients and staff who have deactivation and reactivation challenges with electronic funds transfers.”
As paper food stamps have transitioned out of circulation, Woody, Mayes and others working with the program have been trained for new duties with Access Oklahoma, the state Electronic Benefits Transfer system.
A 31-year veteran in OKDHS Finance, most of the time in the Food Stamps Section, Woody has seen it all. “Our work was like being the keeper of the keys to the state’s largest cash vault,” she said. “At the end of the day everything had to balance, and you went home after it balanced. Sometimes special projects and early deadlines brought on 1 and 2 a.m. days. Not often, but enough to know that we were dealing with very serious financial matters.”
Mayes said “Every time the phone rings or an e-mail pops up, it’s a customer – sometimes the clients call and at other times it’s our co-workers from Family Support Services, Field Operations or social services specialists or administrators in our field offices -- when there is a question about Access Oklahoma, we are there to help.” Access Oklahoma also includes the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, known as TANF, and Day Care subsidy payment systems.
While thousands of OKDHS social workers have taken care of the eligibility process through offices across the state over the years, the Finance Division’s Food Stamp Section got all of the paper cuts from handling the food stamp coupon books as they came in and went out the doors to clients across Oklahoma.
Since the program’s small beginnings in 1973 when $7.7 million in food stamps coupons were mailed to clients, Oklahoma has distributed more than $5.4 billion in food stamp values to Oklahomans. With consistent growth in the state’s Food Stamp program, more than $400 million will be distributed to Oklahomans through Access Oklahoma this year.
Food Stamps are a 100 percent federally funded program and Oklahoma shares administrative costs dollar-for-dollar with the federal government. The program currently delivers nearly $34 million monthly through Access Oklahoma. Since 1998 food stamp recipients have used an Access Oklahoma EBT debit card to handle food-purchasing transactions in authorized retail food outlets.
Today, Access Oklahoma EBT debit cards are accepted nationally, which means the paper food stamps could finally be completely eliminated. “Destruction of the last paper food stamps this month has brought an end to an era and swung wide open the doors to progress in human services delivery.
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