Trump administration blocks $10 million for SNAP funding from Kansas. What now?
After issuing repeated warnings, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Saturday moved to withhold $10.4 million in food assistance funding from Kansas.
The decision comes as Gov. Laura Kelly has refused to comply with the Trump administration’s request to turn over the personal information of every food assistance beneficiary and applicant since Jan. 1, 2020.
Former Wichita state Rep. Patrick Penn, who joined USDA to oversee the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, notified Kelly of the agency’s intent to withhold funding in a letter dated Sept. 20.
Penn said that because Kansas missed another deadline for turning over data on Friday, USDA would hold back money it had already allocated for food assistance. Kansas has a week to file a formal appeal with the SNAP Appeals Board.
“We will, of course, appeal the decision and continue to protect the security of Kansans’ private data,” Will Lawrence, Kelly’s chief of staff, said in an email statement.
“The filing of an appeal will automatically stay the disallowance of funds, meaning the SNAP program will continue to operate normally as the appeals process unfolds.”
Once an appeal is filed, the state will have 30 days to submit materials to support its appeal. The board will then have 60 days to conduct a hearing and another 30 days to issue a final determination.
State records show that roughly 188,000 Kansans receive monthly SNAP benefits.
USDA has threatened to withhold $10.4 million in funding from Kansas every three months that officials refuse to turn over personal information, including the names, dates of birth, home addresses and Social Security numbers of applicants and recipients.
“The complete transmission of the required SNAP enrollment data is imperative to ensure (USDA Food and Nutrition Service) and the State agency have full insight into SNAP program integrity,” Penn wrote.
“FNS has already discovered from states that are complying with this statutory data sharing requirement that fraud or duplication in state distribution of federal funds has gone unreported and needs remediation,” Penn added.
After accepting the Trump administration appointment in May, Penn told well-wishers at a meeting of Sedgwick County Republicans that too many able-bodied people are gaming the system to receive benefits they don’t qualify for.
“We’re going to have some fun in D.C.,” Penn said. “We’re going to break a few eggs, make a few omelettes. Make a couple people cry, and that’s what we look forward to doing because America has to change.”
SNAP lawsuits
On Monday, a California judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the federal government from collecting personal information of SNAP applicants and recipients in 21 Democrat-led states and Washington D.C., that sued USDA over its data-sharing demand.
U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney determined that the states would likely prevail in their argument that personal information of SNAP clients cannot generally be shared with other entities or used for purposes other than administering the program.
Kansas is not involved in the multi-state lawsuit, but Department of Children and Families Secretary Laura Howard cited it in a July response letter explaining why her agency would not comply with USDA’s request.
“Due to the pending litigation, we are forced to deny the USDA’s demand for data at this time,” Howard wrote. “Doing the opposite will place KDCF in a position of potential liability in the event a court finds that the USDA’s demand violates federal law.”
Earlier this month, Attorney General Kris Kobach sued Kelly and Howard in Shawnee County District Court, asking a judge to compel them to turn over the data.
In a press release on Monday, Kobach addressed the more than $10 million in SNAP funding Kansas could lose out on.
“Now low-income Kansas families won’t be able to put food on the table because of (Kelly’s) political defiance,” Kobach said.
“The Governor seems to be blinded by her political ideology. She is flagrantly violating Kansas law, and she is hurting needy Kansans in the process.”
Lawrence, Kelly’s chief of staff, dismissed Kobach’s claims as a bad-faith mischaracterization of facts.
“The Attorney General continues to have a complicated relationship with the facts and the truth in an effort to score political points by misleading thousands of Kansans,” Lawrence said.
This story was originally published September 23, 2025 at 1:34 PM.
