State, Local, and Tribal Government Respondents

J.2 Template for email from Mathematica to State SNAP agency about the survey

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying.

OMB Control No: 0584-XXXX

Expiration date: XX/XX/20XX

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To: SNAP State administrator

Subject: Welcome to the SNAP COVID-19 Survey

Dear [SNAP State administrator FN LN],

You should have received an email a few days ago from [FNS contact] about the SNAP COVID-19 Survey for the How Have SNAP State Agencies Shifted Operations in the Aftermath of COVID-19? (SNAP COVID) study. The United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) contracted with Mathematica to survey all 53 State SNAP agencies to develop a deeper understanding of how agencies have adapted their operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please see the study overview linked here for more details. This survey is not part of any FNS monitoring or auditing activities. The results of the survey will be used for research purposes only. Your responses can help shape future SNAP policies and contribute to larger discussions about better increasing preparedness for future public health emergencies.

About the survey

The survey will take about 45 minutes to complete. The introduction of the survey provides an overview of each section and allows you to delegate others within your agency to complete a specific section(s). Once you have delegated the sections, the study team will reach out to these individuals about their assignments. These sections include (1) Staffing; (2) Operations; (3) Benefit issuance; (4) Client case management and communication; and (5) Technology and data systems.

To start the survey, please visit [fill unique State web survey URL].

Please complete the survey by [three weeks from start date].

You will find a PDF of the full survey here, which you may review to help decide if you need different people to help with answering the questions.

If you are unable to take the survey online, please call us at 1-800-XXX-XXXX between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, to take the survey over the phone. If you are unable to complete the survey online or over the phone, you may complete it as a fillable PDF available here and return it to [emailinbox]@mathematica-mpr.com.

Within the survey, there are requests for your State agency to submit relevant documents. After you submit your survey, we will send you an email summarizing the documents to submit to Mathematica and instructions for doing so. The documents will provide us important context about COVID-19 related policies and operations in your State. We estimate that this task should take about 30 minutes. However, if it is very challenging for you to provide us with all requested documents, then we will work with you to make this process as easy as possible.

Public Burden Statement

This information is being collected to assist the Food and Nutrition Service in examining how State SNAP agencies shifted operations since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a voluntary data collection and FNS will use the information to describe how State agencies shifted operations during and after the public health emergency and identify best practices and lessons learned. This collection does not request any personally identifiable information under the Privacy Act of 1974. According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0584-XXXX and Expiration Date XX-XX-20XX. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to take 0.1 hours per response. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, Office of Policy Support, 1320 Braddock Place, 5th Floor, Alexandria, VA 22306 ATTN: PRA (0584-XXXX).

FNS strongly encourages all SNAP agencies to participate in this important study. The information you provide will be private and will not be maintained or disclosed in identifiable form to anyone outside the study team, except as otherwise required by law. We ask that you please respond to this email to acknowledge its receipt.

Questions about the survey?

If you have any questions or concerns about the survey, please contact the Mathematica study team at [emailinbox]@mathematica-mpr.com or call us at 1-800-XXX-XXXX. You can reach the FNS project officer, Amanda Wyant, at [email protected].

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this important study.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Brown

Project director, SNAP COVID study