In recent years, Maryland has reduced the administrative errors it makes when sending food assistance dollars to low-income families — but that success might cost the state in a year.
New federal data shows that Maryland slightly reduced what’s called the “payment error rate” from 13.64 in federal fiscal year 2024 to 13.08 in federal fiscal year 2025, according to an update this week.
While small, that .56 reduction is the line between Maryland paying more than $240 million under new cost-sharing requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and qualifying for a yearlong grace period granted to states with higher error rates…