Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announces $5M for food banks during SNAP benefits freeze

Volunteers with Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville are feeding people impacted by SNAP freeze. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

Days after thousands of Tennessee families lost monthly federal food benefits, Gov. Bill Lee announced he would direct $5 million in state funding to food banks.

Lee said Tuesday that funding will come from savings accrued in TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program for the poor, disabled and elderly, and be distributed to regions based on the population of individuals who rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. SNAP provides monthly cash benefits loaded onto debit cards to buy food at grocery stores.  

Second Harvest Food Bank will be the main group distributing the funds, which should begin arriving at other food banks within days, he said. The Governor’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, which receives state funds but is not considered a government agency, came up with the plan for distributing funds.

“This whole federal shutdown problem has created a tremendous hardship for a lot of Tennesseans. It’s disappointing that it’s happened. It’s frustrating to people, including myself. It needs to come to an end. The government needs to open up,” Lee said.

A spokesperson for Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, the state’s largest hunger relief organization, said Tuesday that the organization is awaiting additional information from the governor’s office. 

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“We are waiting, ourselves, for clarification from the governor on this announcement.” Pearce Baringer, a spokesperson, said via email.”We expect a letter from his office in the next week with more information.”

About 690,000 Tennesseans living in poverty, nearly half of them children, rely on the SNAP to buy food; in total, Tennessee distributes $145 million in SNAP benefits each month.

In October, the Trump administration announced a benefits freeze, for the first time in the program’s history, due to the government shutdown. 

Two federal courts said the freezing of SNAP benefits was illegal. Trump and the White House have subsequently issued conflicting statements about whether they will comply with the court orders.

“SNAP BENEFITS….will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” Trump posted on Truth Social Tuesday morning.

But Tuesday afternoon, a White House spokesperson said the federal government would comply with the orders and distribute partial November payments to SNAP recipients. No timeline was provided.

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Clarence Carter, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services, said that his department received “some guidance” from the U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding the distribution of benefits. 

“We are working around the clock to recalibrate our entire system to comply with the court order and USDA guidance,” Carter told Lee during a budget hearing Tuesday. 

Once Tennessee gets the green light to load SNAP debit cards with cash benefits, the Department of Human Services can typically deliver recipient data to an outside vendor within 24 hours, a department spokesperson said.  The vendor “will need time to process the file and distribute benefits,” an operation that will take an estimated additional three days.  

Advocates have noted that food banks across the state don’t have the capacity to serve all those impacted by the SNAP benefits freeze. For every meal a food bank can provide, SNAP provides nine, according to Feeding America.

SNAP benefits are likely to consume a far larger chunk of the Tennessee budget. 

Until now the federal government has paid half of the $128 million in administrative costs Tennessee incurs to run the program and picked up the tab for the entire $145 million in monthly cash benefits, according to 2023 data published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Under Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Act, the federal government will shift half the cost of administering the program to states, and a portion of the benefit costs.

Carter said Tuesday that Tennessee taxpayers will have to pay $77 million more annually to cover the administrative costs. He did not provide an estimate on the portion of benefits Tennessee will have to pay next year. Under new federal law, states will have to pick up a share of the benefit costs that depends on error rates in their processing of SNAP benefits.