Now that SNAP benefits are guaranteed to flow for the next year, it’s time for Pennsylvania to better monitor how the program operates in the commonwealth.

Throughout the late summer and early fall there has been debate over Pennsylvania’s SNAP error rate. We’re one of the states that either overpays or underpays more than 10% of SNAP recipients. That’s a number worth paying attention to because states with error rates over 10% will have to pay money back to the federal government under a provision included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. According to a state Independent Fiscal Office analysis over the summer, the federal government would charge Pennsylvania about $645 million a year starting in 2027-28 if its error rate remains the same.

State officials have dismissed the error rate as minor paperwork issues. We don’t believe that for a second – and neither do state officials. If Pennsylvania’s SNAP error rate was the result of minor clerical issues the state wouldn’t have moved so quickly to find solutions that were later overruled by the Shapiro Administration, nor would the Shapiro administration have touted inclusion in the state budget of measures to lower the SNAP error rate.

With that in mind, lawmakers from both parties should support legislation proposed by House Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon, who wants the state Department of Human Services to issue a report which analyzes the commonwealth’s payment error rate for the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) every year starting Jan. 1, 2026, if the legislation is passed and signed into law.

State legislators need to be kept in the loop when it comes to SNAP error payments given the possibility of a $645 million penalty.

That shouldn’t take an act of the state Legislature to make happen, but it’s an important enough issue for lawmakers that Heffley’s bill makes a lot of sense.