So, Tennessee Has $1B In Unspent Funds For Needy Families. What's Next?
Tennessee has let about $1 billion for needy families go unspent.
That’s according to The Tennessean and the Beacon Center, an organization that tracks government spending in the state. They estimate that more than 40,000 people could be helped by the money.
Natalie Allison, a state politics reporter for The Tennessean, has been covering how the state runs its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF. She sat down with WPLN’s Rachel Iacovone to discuss why lawmakers disagree on the next steps forward.
Below are some excerpts from that conversation:
RI: So how did the state end up having so much money?
NA: They weren’t spending it. In 2012, the reserve amount was right around $20 million. And since then, it has shot up dramatically, really since 2016. So we’re at around $730 [to] $732 million in the last few years. The state just hasn’t been allocating very much of that TANF block grant.
Read more: https://wpln.org/post/so-tennessee-has-1b-in-unspent-funds-for-needy-families-whats-next/