P-EBT applicant process significantly improved, Muavaefa’atasi says

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Department of Human Social Services director, Muavaefa’atasi John Suisala recently told Samoa News their department has significantly improved this year's P-EBT application process using lessons learned from the first round of P-EBT last year by enhancing the online portal to become self-service to make it more convenient. 

P-EBT is a food program managed by the American Samoa Nutrition Assistance Program (ASNAP) Division of DHSS that benefits school children of both private and public schools. In general, school children are eligible for benefits and must be enrolled in a school.

Muavaefa’atasi’s comments follow concerns by members of the public saying they are having a hard time registering their children on the department’s P-EBT websystem. (Read Aug. 18, 2022 article, “Another ASG online enrollment program creating problems for the public” for details reported by Samoa News.)

He pointed out that “allowing our people to apply using our online portal also keeps our families safe especially when we are still under a state of public health emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic (and in the event of another lockdown they can still apply since they are no longer required to come to the office for this purpose). 

 “I can assure you that the current P-EBT online registration portal is not creating problems for the public,” the DHSS director said. “In fact, the problems you are referring to are created by the parents when they provide the wrong information when registering, regardless if it's on a paper application or through the online portal.

According to Muavaefa’atasi, if parents provide information that does not match the official school enrollment records from DOE for public and private schools, then they are providing the wrong information when registering.

“These were the same problems we experienced last year when the majority of the parents provided the wrong information when they completed our paper applications.

“However, there are significant improvements this time around,” Muavaefa’atasi said.

He said last year, about 90% of the parents applied using paper applications. 

 “When the applications were turned in to the ASNAP office, they were logged based on the date they were received and were forwarded to the appropriate staff to input each application. 

 “This was a very tedious and slow process due to the limited number of ASNAP employees who serve ASNAP participants and P-EBT applicants at the same time. When the paper applications were inputted and the information matched the DOE records, the application got approved. 

 “Unfortunately, the majority of the applications were not approved due to the wrong information provided by the parents.”

Adding, the normal practice by people is to start calling and/ or showing up at the office immediately after they drop off their applications and because it takes days and weeks to input the thousands of applications into the system, the staff advised the parents to please wait until their applications are inputted and they are called — but they kept on calling or showing up every day causing unnecessary crowds, long lines and slowing down the service for those whose applications were approved and ready for issuance. 

 “When their applications were finally inputted and the staff found that the information they submitted did not match the DOE records, they called them to go to the DOE to make the necessary corrections and bring back a verification from DOE to complete their applications. 

“A lot of them showed up at the ASNAP office the same day they went to DOE and when informed that the updates have not been re-imported into the system and they must wait until we call them, they continued to call and/ or show up at the office almost every day until their information finally lined up with the DOE records and they are issued benefits. 

 “This is why there were so many complaints last year that we were giving them a run around when all they needed to do was to be patient and wait for a call to come in to finalize their applications, take their photo ID cards and pick up their children's benefits.”

The director said this year they have improved their system significantly where parents are not required to come to the office except for picking up their P-EBT ID cards and food coupons when their registrations are auto-approved by the system. 

However, “if their registrations do not match the official school records, we ask them on the telephone to go to the DOE to make the necessary corrections and wait 24 to 48 hours then log back into their accounts to either edit their registrations if necessary and resubmit for auto-approval without the need to come to the office. 

 “Unfortunately, most parents continue to refuse to adhere to the process and did exactly what they did last year when they applied using paper applications. 

 “For example, they continue to submit the wrong information about themselves or their children, which prevents their registration from getting auto-approved. 

 “When we ask them not to come to the office until they are contacted, they still call or show up almost every day, and when asked not to come to the office after visiting DOE to correct their records but to go home and wait for 24 to 48 hours before logging back into their accounts to resubmit, they still log into their accounts right away and then keep on calling or showing up to the office, instead of waiting for 24 to 48 hours to log back in to check on the status of their registrations. 

 “And a sizable number of parents forgot their passwords to log back into their accounts to edit and resubmit their registrations.”

The DHSS director made it clear their online registration portal is NOT creating problems for the public. 

 “If anything, it is working much better now and the approval process is much faster compared to last year. 

 “We just opened the online registration portal on July 18, 2022. 

“By the end of last week (our first week of the issuance of P-EBT benefits), 6,098 registrations were filed for close to 11,000 children.

“Of this amount, 2,921 registrations were approved for 6,141 children and 4,261 students received P-EBT benefits last week valued at $2,453,472. 

 “Of the remaining 3,177 registrations, 1,670 are still pending because the information parents entered does not match DOE records and 1,507 registrations remain un-submitted for reasons such as parents forgetting their passwords and we having to reset their accounts and give them temporary passwords.”     

Muavaefa’atasi also pointed to negativity portrayed by Samoa News in the last article about the P-EBT benefit and not the positive aspects such as the great benefits that the P-EBT program brings to local families, communities, and economy, especially during these hard times. (See Aug. 18th story.)

 “As you may know, the U.S. Congress finally made this program available to the territories last year but, like all the states, we have to apply for it and submit and justify a State Plan for both the regular school year and for the summer. 

 “In fact, American Samoa was the first state or territory in the Western Region that applied for and received approval for the second round of P-EBT. 

“As a side note, you may also be interested to know that all Federal assistance programs that we administer such as the ASNAP, ASWIC, and Child Care programs require participants to reapply at the end of their certification periods, which is between 6 months and 1 year. 

“Just because they already qualify for food stamps, WIC, or child care subsidies does not mean that they do not need to reapply when their certification period ends. 

“Similarly, even if parents received P-EBT benefits for their children last year, they still need to register for this second round of P-EBT,” he pointed out.