As Federal Shifts Bump Up Virginia Social Service Workloads, a Bill Proposing Tech Upgrades Could Help

As state lawmakers prepare to reconvene in Richmond for the 2026 legislative session next week, Virginia is also working to reduce its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) error rate or risk losing its federal funding, while also now verifying recipients’ eligibility, which levies more work onto already-strained health and social service systems. They also must contend with forthcoming changes to Medicaid eligibility.

Social services staffers around Virginia have for years grappled with outdated technology and are now preparing for extra workloads; a new bill could spur upgrades that might help.

Here’s what Virginia is doing so far to reduce its SNAP error rate

House Bill 66 by Del. Michael Feggans, D-Virginia Beach, would direct the Department of Medical Assistance Services and the Department of Social Services to modernize the information technology they use to provide social and medical programs to Virginians.

While the federal shifts make it timely, the departments’ old tech isn’t a new issue. The Virginia Case Management System (VaCMS), first built in the 1990s, is outdated, a 2024 state-commissioned study revealed.

It’s also a concern Feggans heard last year from constituents as he served on a bipartisan committee to assess how the state could respond to federal cuts.

The 2024 study noted delays or timeouts if more than a few hundred social services workers were processing cases simultaneously on VaCMS — a common occurrence, considering eligibility determination work is handled by hundreds of local social services workers around Virginia.

“Poor user experience with VaCMS leads to the use of workarounds, further increasing variability in the process,” the report stated.

The note of constraints with VaCMS was among “strong concerns” relayed by the Virginia League of Social Services Executives in feedback last summer to the state government, records obtained by The Mercury show.

Smaller staff at local offices have also expressed worry about the extra work outlined in the reconciliation bill Congress passed last summer. The federal legislation spurs states to reduce their error rates for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, along with eligibility determination changes for both SNAP and Medicaid.

While SNAP helps low-income people afford groceries, states that fail to reduce their error rates could be on the hook for millions that the federal government typically provides. Error rates — an overpayment or underpayment to beneficiaries — can stem from paperwork mistakes by social service workers or outdated information from recipients. About 850,000 Virginians rely on the program to feed their families.

Medicaid is a joint state and federal program that provides health insurance coverage to about 1.9 million Virginians who live with disabilities, are pregnant, or are low-income earners without employer-provided coverage. Changes to Medicaid eligibility could likely affect about 630,000 Virginians at risk of losing it and the expanded workload for social services workers, which Virginia’s Medicaid director told state lawmakers last summer will “be hard on them.”

Slower and outdated technology can  increase margins for human error and make it harder for Virginia to meet the federal mandates.

Feggans said it’s important for state lawmakers to “make sure that we can take care of as many people as we can in the state with so many cuts coming from the federal government.”

The state government should invest in a new IT system to counteract these challenges, Feggans added. Prior to his service in the legislature, Feggans worked in health care technology for the U.S. Air Force. He “knows what it means” to have systems that are efficient.

As the bill must advance through the legislature in order to end up on Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger’s desk, Feggans said he plans to work with his fellow lawmakers to sort out how feasible the upgrades may be and at what cost. Amid continued federal funding and service cuts, Feggans emphasized how careful Virginia must be with its resources while still being able to “take care” of constituents.

“The next few years are going to be about austerity,” he said.

by Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury

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