Lawmaker fighting to eliminate abuse and fraud in the system
\n\u00a0
\nState Rep. Paul Opsommer today announced legislation that ensures only individuals truly in need of a Bridge Card to participate in the program. \u00a0
\nThe legislation will require individuals to complete a countable asset test to ensure financial need before being granted food assistance benefits.
\n“Ensuring that we are only providing state assistance to those who truly need it is extremely important to me,” said Opsommer, R-DeWitt. “It’s important that all assets be considered when Bridge Card eligibility is determined and this legislation ensures that it is.”
\nAccording to the Michigan Department of Human Services, lottery winnings are only counted toward income used in determining food assistance eligibility if the winner receives regular payments. Winnings do not count toward income if they are collected all at once.
\nDue to this inconsistency, Opsommer’s legislation also clarifies that all lottery winnings will be considered income regardless of how it is dispersed.
\nThe Michigan House of Representatives has been working closely with the Department of Human Services this year to eliminate fraud and abuse of the state’s food assistance resources. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lawmaker fighting to eliminate abuse and fraud in the system<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}