WIC program funded through Appropriations Act

With last week’s passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (H.R. 933), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s state-administrated Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) will receive $6.8 billion in discretionary funding. This will provide an additional $250 million for WIC and help alleviate the approximately $350 million cut from the program due to sequestration. Of this total, $35 million is appropriated for management information systems (MIS), and $14 million for infrastructure upgrades. The passage of H.R. 933 funds the government through September 30, 2013, and prevents a government shutdown.

According to the National WIC Association, “With this new higher funding allocation, WIC contingency funds, unspent SNAP transfer funds carried over from the previous year, and unspent recovered funds available for reallocation, WIC will likely be able to manage through the rest of the fiscal year without cutting any participants.” This is a turnaround from the 600,000 women and children projected to lose benefits as a result of the sequestration cuts that went into effect March 1.

Georgia, Indiana, and Rhode Island are just three of many states actively planning to replace or upgrade their MIS. As discussed in previous blogs, Montana and California are two states working to implement new or upgraded electronic benefits transfer (EBT) systems for WIC and other public benefit programs. Recently awarded WIC contracts include New Jersey’s Automated Client Centered Electronic Service System (WIC ACCESS) contract to CMA Consulting, Florida’s EBT contract to eFunds (FIS), and Indiana’s EBT planning services contract to JRW Service Corporation.

Deltek’s GovWin IQ database contains more than 80 pre-RFP opportunities relating to WIC information technology projects and related consulting and quality assurance (QA) services, as well as detailed award and contract information for nearly 100 awarded WIC contracts. Deltek is also closely tracking sequestration’s impact on government contracting and providing insight on how the vendor community can overcome the cuts and continue to win government business at the state, local and federal levels.

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