abc3340.com · September 8, 2026
Alabama looks to spend $8.5 million to combat theft of EBT benefits
# Alabama looks to spend $8.5 million to combat theft of EBT benefits
by Austin Pratt
Tue, September 8, 2026 at 5:31 PM
New data show Maryland now ranks ninth-highest in the nation for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payment errors. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WBMA) — Alabama is looking to spend $8.5 million on new fraud-mitigation services aimed at protecting benefits loaded onto Electronic Benefit Transfer cards from theft.
The Alabama Department of Human Resources submitted a one-year contract with Conduent State and Local Solutions, Inc., the company that already provides EBT services to the state.
Contract documents say the services are intended to help identify and mitigate EBT cardholder losses, improve cardholders' control over their accounts and address what the state describes as "rising fraud within the EBT industry."
DHR officials discussed the problem during a Sept. 3 meeting of the Alabama Contract Review Committee.
Brandon Hardin, DHR's deputy commissioner for workforce, told lawmakers the department had investigated cases involving benefits being stolen from Alabama EBT cards through transactions occurring in other states.
"The fraud mitigation contract is a contract with all the benefits that were being stolen off of the EBT cards from states like New York, New Jersey in the middle of the night," Hardin said.
DHR said Alabama has already upgraded EBT cards to include chips and implemented controls allowing recipients to lock and unlock their cards using their phones. Hardin said cards now default to blocking out-of-state and online transactions unless the cardholder changes those settings.
The $8.5 million contract with Conduent is listed as a sole-source agreement, meaning the services were not put through a competitive bidding process. DHR told lawmakers the fraud-mitigation services became available after Conduent had already been awarded the state's underlying EBT services contract.
"Because we wanted this EBT fraud mitigation, we did it as a sole source add-on," a DHR representative told the committee.
The state would provide 75% of the funding for the contract, while federal money would cover the remaining 25%. The contract is scheduled to begin the month after the governor's signature and run through Sept. 30, 2027.
DHR officials also stressed that the EBT theft addressed by the contract is separate from Alabama's SNAP payment error rate, an issue that was also discussed during the committee meeting.
Hardin said the payment error rate deals with mistakes involving benefits paid in individual cases, while the Conduent contract specifically targets theft.
"The contract that's in front of you today is about theft. It's about folks stealing the benefits," Hardin said.
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