After successful pilot tests in Wichita and the more rural Hutchinson area, the Kansas Vision Card will be making its debut in Kansas City and Olathe areas October 1.

The Kansas Vision Card is the debit card used in the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services' Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) program. It allows persons eligible for Food Stamps to use a plastic card to purchase food at participating stores. Persons eligible for the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program or the General Assistance (GA) program will also use the EBT card to access cash assistance.

Some of the benefits of moving to an EBT system and away from distribution of benefits via mail and over the counter are as follows:

*Improve, and speed up, the delivery of Food Stamps and cash benefits to clients and eliminate the mail loss of Food Stamp benefits;

*Provide a reliable and less stigmatic method for eligible recipients to purchase food for their families;

*Provide a more effective system of fraud detection and prevention.

SRS Secretary Rochelle Chronister said training done by Deluxe Data and by SRS staff in preparing recipients for the change has been excellent. She said the start-up of the program has been very successful.

For the magnitude of the change, the number of problems in both the Wichita and Hutchinson areas were kept to a minimum," she said. Both recipients and SRS staff should be proud of the work they did to make this change."

In Wichita and Sedgwick County, over 17,000 families have been trained and are now using the Vision Card to access food and/or cash assistance. The program began August 1.

In the more rural Hutchinson SRS area, which includes seven counties in south central Kansas, about 3,600 families have been trained and are using the new system. The Kansas Vision Card program began in the Hutchinson area September 1.

The Kansas Vision Card functions like other financial industry debit and credit magnetic stripe cards. But the state, rather than a financial institution, issues the cards to recipients. The state maintains a database with authorized benefit account information. When the recipient uses the card, his or her benefit account is reduced by the amount of food purchased or cash withdrawn.

Clients may access their cash and Food Stamp benefit from Point of Sale (POS) terminals at food stores or Automated Teller Machines (ATM). For clients, the Kansas Vision Card works like this:

At participating food stores, recipients hand the card to the cashier at participating food stores who run the card through a POS terminal after ringing up the groceries purchased. Then the cashier will hand a 'pin pad' to the recipient, who will key in a four-digit personal identification number (PIN), known only to the recipient. The dollar amount of purchased food will automatically be deducted from the recipient's monthly food stamp benefit.

Food Stamp transactions can only occur at authorized Food Stamp food retailers. Cash benefit transactions can occur at both POS terminals and ATMs. Each type of transaction requires the client to use his card and enter a four digit PIN for the transaction to work.

The Kansas City SRS area includes Wyandotte County, while the Olathe SRS area includes Leavenworth, Johnson and Miami counties. Working with Deluxe Data System, a Milwaukee, Wi. company with experience in setting up EBT systems, SRS expects to have the EBT system statewide by March, 1997.

Kansas will join seven other states with statewide EBT systems. EBT systems in Maryland, Texas, Utah, South Carolina and New Mexico are currently statewide, while North Dakota and South Dakota are expected to be up statewide within six months.

Under federal welfare reform, states are required to have a statewide EBT system in place by the year 2002.

After the Kansas City and Olathe areas begin the Kansas Vision Card program, the schedule is as follows:

Topeka and Lawrence SRS areas; November, 1996;

Salina, Manhattan, and Emporia SRS areas; December, 1996;

Chanute SRS area; January, 1997;

Hays SRS area; February, 1997;

Garden City SRS area; March, 1997.

Page Last Updated: May 29, 2001