As SNAP Administrative Costs Shift to North Carolina Counties, Staff Time Matters More Than Ever

North Carolina counties are taking on a larger share of the cost of administering SNAP at the same time the program is becoming more complicated to manage.

Beginning October 1, 2026, federal reimbursement for Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) administrative expenses drops from 50% to 25%, leaving state and local governments responsible for 75% of those costs. NCDHHS estimates the change could increase administrative costs for North Carolina counties by approximately $65 million.

For county DSS departments, the funding change makes it even more important to understand where staff time is going and where unnecessary administrative work may be adding to an already demanding workload.

Counties cannot control every cost associated with administering SNAP, nor can they eliminate the complexity of federal and state requirements. They can, however, take a closer look at the day-to-day work surrounding SNAP administration and identify repetitive tasks that take staff time away from cases requiring their experience and attention.

The cost of SNAP administration is also the cost of staff time

A change in administrative funding may show up as a percentage on a budget sheet, but much of that cost ultimately comes down to the people doing the work.

Every day, county DSS staff process applications and recertifications, review household information, communicate with residents, interpret FNS guidance, document case activity and keep up with changes to program requirements. Much of this work requires experience and individual judgment, particularly when a household has a complicated eligibility situation.

At the same time, caseworkers spend part of their day on tasks that are much more repetitive. They may need to locate the latest guidance before responding to a question, check with a supervisor to confirm how a new requirement should be handled or search through emails and shared folders for a resource they know exists somewhere.

As SNAP requirements change, for example, a caseworker may need to confirm which guidance applies before moving forward with an application or recertification. If that process involves searching through updated FNS guidance, checking an internal resource and then asking a supervisor to confirm the answer, the time spent finding information can quickly become significant when the same question comes up across a department.

Staff may also find themselves answering the same questions about documentation, recertification or changing requirements throughout the week. When those answers have to be researched or recreated each time, a relatively small task can consume a meaningful amount of time across an entire DSS department.

As counties take on a larger share of SNAP administrative expenses, understanding where that time goes and where it can be reduced becomes increasingly important.

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Efficiency does not have to mean asking caseworkers to work faster

When budgets tighten, conversations about efficiency can quickly turn into conversations about how employees can accomplish more in the same amount of time. For DSS teams already managing significant caseloads while adapting to changing SNAP requirements, asking staff to simply work faster does little to address the underlying problem.

A more sustainable approach is to look at the work surrounding each case and identify the steps employees should not have to repeat.

If caseworkers regularly stop to locate the same FNS policy or procedure, the department may need a better way to organize and access that information. When newer employees repeatedly ask experienced staff the same questions about applications or recertifications, important knowledge may not be documented in a way that is useful to the rest of the team. Similarly, when several employees independently create responses or instructions for the same situation, the department may be duplicating work without realizing how much time it consumes.

Addressing these operational challenges can help departments improve efficiency without expecting caseworkers to rush through complicated cases. Staff can spend less time searching for information or recreating work and more time helping residents and managing cases that require their expertise.

As requirements change, departments can also turn frequently used internal processes into Guided Workflows that walk staff through the right questions in the right order. This gives caseworkers a clearer way to follow approved guidance without having to research the process from the beginning each time:

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Protecting the time of experienced DSS staff

Every DSS department has employees who become trusted resources for the rest of the team. They understand the nuances of FNS policy, know where to find the right guidance and can often help coworkers navigate situations that are not immediately clear.

Experienced staff provide an enormous amount of value to their departments, but they can also become the default resource for information that could be available to the entire team. When routine questions about procedures, documentation or changing requirements repeatedly make their way to the same handful of people, those employees have to balance their own caseloads and responsibilities with helping coworkers find information.

Collaboration will always be an important part of DSS work, particularly when a case genuinely requires another person's expertise. However, routine questions should not require an interruption every time they come up. Documenting approved processes, organizing frequently used guidance and making institutional knowledge easier to access can give employees the information they need without requiring an experienced coworker to personally provide it each time.

When this knowledge is accessible across the department, experienced employees can focus more of their time on complicated cases while newer staff have a reliable place to find approved information. Departments are also less dependent on individual employees to keep important processes moving when someone is out of the office, changes roles or eventually leaves the organization.

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Looking beyond the SNAP caseload

Caseload is one of the most obvious measures of workload within a DSS department, but it does not capture all of the time required to administer SNAP.

Each case also comes with work that happens around the application, recertification or resident interaction. Employees need to find current guidance, confirm procedures, answer questions, locate resources and make sure the information they are using still reflects the latest requirements. Since these tasks happen in small increments throughout the day, the time they require can be easy to overlook.

Looking more closely at these everyday processes can help DSS leaders understand where staff capacity is being lost to unnecessary administrative work. Departments can examine how easily caseworkers can find current guidance, which routine questions are consistently reaching supervisors and which processes still depend on an experienced employee knowing the answer or where to find it.

Better access to internal knowledge will not reduce the number of SNAP applications or recertifications a county receives, nor will it simplify federal eligibility requirements. What it can do is reduce the administrative work surrounding those cases, giving employees more time for the decisions, conversations and individual circumstances that require their expertise.

Making better use of the capacity counties already have

The reduction in federal administrative reimbursement gives North Carolina counties another reason to examine how SNAP work moves through their DSS departments, but improving efficiency does not have to require sweeping operational changes.

The opportunities may already be visible in everyday work. Caseworkers may be repeatedly searching for the same FNS guidance, an internal process may never have been formally documented or routine procedural questions may be reaching supervisors simply because staff do not have an easy way to access an approved answer.

A few minutes saved during one application, recertification or resident interaction may not seem significant on its own, but those minutes become meaningful when the same processes are repeated across a department every day.

As counties absorb a greater share of SNAP administrative costs, making better use of existing staff capacity will become even more important. Rather than asking DSS employees to continually do more with less, departments can focus on reducing the repetitive administrative work that takes time away from the cases, conversations and decisions that genuinely require their attention.

Acta helps local government departments capture the policies, procedures and institutional knowledge their teams rely on and make that information easier to access during day-to-day work. For DSS teams, easier access to this information means less time spent searching for guidance, recreating existing resources and escalating routine questions, leaving staff with more time to serve residents and manage the cases that require their expertise.

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