Supervisors make $400K available for WIC funding in Pima County

Pima County supervisors have approved freeing up some funds to make sure the county’s Woman, Infant and Children (WIC) Program remains operational through this month amid the federal government shutdown.

Supervisors last week approved providing $399,440 in interim funding to ensure instant food and formula benefits go uninterrupted through the end of November.

WIC benefits are currently available only until mid-November through the Arizona Department of Health Services, the county said. The county’s funds will allow benefits to continue through the end of the month for more than 4,400 infants, the county said.

Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher said it’s her hope “that this is simply interim funding.” The county’s program receives funding through the state and federal governments, Lesher said, and “it is our hope, our belief that those funds will be reimbursed, but there is no 100% guarantee of that.”

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Early last week, $450 million in additional federal funding had been allocated to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), according to the National WIC Association, a nonprofit organization that works with public health nutrition service provider agencies across the country. But that’s only a “temporary fix,” NWICA said.

Additionally, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fund SNAP benefits for the month of November, which was appealed Friday.

The county funding was approved 4-1, with Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy, the lone Republican on the board, voting no.

“This is a federal issue, it is a federal government issue, and it appears that the money has been released, and that WIC has been funded at least for the short term, and hopefully if the Schumer shutdown is removed and perhaps if my colleagues would talk to their Democrat Senators from Arizona to go back to Washington and get to work, and get in more Democrat Senators and open up the government, this would not be happening, and all of this could be avoided,” Christy said ahead of the vote. “But in the meantime, WIC has been funded.”

Lesher said the funding approved last week allows the county flexibility so the county doesn’t “miss a day of programming, of the food and the formula for those babies.” If federal funding flows in, she said, then the county won’t use the allocation approved by the board.