The Ohio Legislature is considering a bill to add the photos of food stamp recipients to their electronic benefit transfer or EBT cards. The idea is to stop food stamp fraud.
State Auditor Dave Yost reported on food stamp fraud last year but says he still isn’t sure how much fraud is in the system. That’s why he’s backing this bill.
“We believe this will be helpful to avoid trafficking in cards. We know that there are trafficking in food benefits that are happening around the state, and a photograph is a simple straight forward way to deter that.”
The leader of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks says she’s all for cracking down on fraud. But Lisa Hamler Fugitt questions whether there’s enough of it to warrant this change.
“I think the devil is in the details on how this is going to be implemented.”
Yost says the cost of implementation in Ohio is yet to be determined, but he says Massachusetts paid $1.5 million in start-up costs when it recently put a similar program in place.
