PIERRE, S.D. (John Hult and Seth Tupper / South Dakota Searchlight) – The South Dakota Department of Social Services says it began preparations over the weekend to issue partial food assistance benefits for this month, but the department is also keeping open the possibility that it could pay full benefits.
In either case, said an advisory on the department’s website as of Monday afternoon, benefits won’t come until “later this week.” The 10th day of the month, which was Monday, is the normal day for payment of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in the state.
RF Buche, whose Buche Foods stores serve many SNAP participants in South Dakota, said it’s not clear when benefits might come or whether those benefits will be the full amount or a partial amount.
“Right now, we’re just sitting and waiting,” Buche said. “Waiting to hear what comes next, and hoping that what we hear next will be accurate.”
Rapidly changing situation
The confusion comes in response to federal government shutdown-related chaos affecting the program that helps 42 million Americans, including 75,000 South Dakotans, afford groceries.
On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay the program’s full November benefits, despite the ongoing shutdown.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told states it was releasing full November funding for SNAP, and the South Dakota Department of Social Services said it would pay full benefits Monday.
Later Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked the order from the lower court, which the Trump administration had appealed. A decision from the Supreme Court is expected Tuesday. The South Dakota Department of Social Services reacted Saturday by saying it had “paused implementation of its plan to provide full benefits.”
A Saturday memo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service said states should fund 65% of benefits. In South Dakota, said the Department of Social Services, paying partial benefits “involves several days of system programming and approval.”
Meanwhile, the department said, it is “also monitoring the probability that Congress will act to re-open the federal government this week.” On Sunday night, the U.S. Senate advanced a bill that could end the shutdown, but the legislation still needs final Senate approval and also needs approval from the House of Representatives and President Donald Trump.
“DSS will issue November benefits — either partial or full, depending on the timing of Congress’s actions — later this week,” said a message on the state department’s website as of Monday morning.
Crow Creek eying backstops
Crow Creek Tribal Chairman Peter Lengkeek took to his tribe’s Facebook communications page to warn members that no SNAP checks would come Monday, but that state officials “assured me they are working diligently on the issue.”
“The tribe is also working to fill that gap by partnering with private entities, local churches and tribal programs to provide the necessary food items as needed,” Lengkeek wrote. “I will pass along information as I receive it.”
In an interview with South Dakota Searchlight, Lengkeek said Social Services Secretary Matt Althoff took his call Monday and told him the agency intends to get SNAP benefits of 65% out to South Dakotans by Wednesday.
About 40% of people in Buffalo County, where the tribe’s headquarters are located, receive SNAP benefits.
The Crow Creek tribe has worked on building a food sovereignty program since 2020, Lengkeek said, in response to near-shortfalls in food availability during the COVID-19 pandemic. The tribe purchased a herd of elk, as well as buffalo and cattle, and built up a processing plant.
Typically, the livestock operation functions as a money-maker for the tribe, Lengkeek said, but the animals can also serve as a backstop in situations where food may run out. The tribe is prepared to slaughter some of its buffalo and cattle if necessary, Lengkeek said.
The tribe also recently set up a soup kitchen in Fort Thompson that opens three times a week, serving as many as 300 each time. That happened before the government shutdown, the chairman said.
“Wages are stagnant, benefits have been stagnant, so we’ve had to do that to fill the gap,” he said.
Grocer uses nonprofit to distribute food vouchers
RF Buche is president of Buche Foods, a grocer that serves many tribal communities, including on the Crow Creek reservation. Like Lengkeek, he said SNAP payments aren’t high enough at current prices.
The payments are nonetheless critical for many South Dakota families, Buche said.
Three of the nation’s most SNAP-dependent counties are centered on tribal land in South Dakota, and benefit recipients in those low-population counties represent an outsized share of the $15 million in monthly SNAP benefits paid throughout the state. Those counties include Todd County, home of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and Oglala Lakota County, home of the Pine Ridge Reservation.
“In Todd and Oglala Lakota alone, you’re looking at $2.5 million in benefits,” Buche told South Dakota Searchlight, estimating that another $5 million in benefits flow to families who live in the other tribal communities served by his stores.
There have been some inventory and ordering headaches for Buche’s store managers over the past few weeks and into the weekend, but those issues, he said, “are minute in comparison to what families are going through when they don’t know where their next meal is coming from.”
Team Buche Cares, the grocer’s nonprofit arm, distributed about $300,000 in food vouchers to SNAP-eligible families over the weekend. That was facilitated in part by donations that came after the SNAP concerns bubbled over with the government shutdown.
A Wagner business owner donated enough to feed 50 families “without being asked,” Buche said, and a Pine Ridge store’s appearance in a CNN article spurred additional donations.
“People from all over the country have been sending anything from $10 on up,” Buche said. “It’s been very humbling.”
In his interview with Searchlight, Lengkeek said he’s been grateful to Buche for the assistance on the Crow Creek Reservation. Anna Halverson, an Oglala Sioux Tribal Council representative, expressed a similar sentiment. It’s “nothing new” for Buche’s charitable arm to offer aid to Pine Ridge, she said, but it’s also not especially uncommon for tribes to find themselves in the position of needing help.
It’s not supposed to be like that, Halverson said. Treaties inked between the U.S. government and tribal leaders in 1851 and 1868 were meant to guarantee food security for Native Americans in exchange for land. Halverson said cuts or proposed cuts to SNAP, as well as the threat of benefit losses in a shutdown, open old wounds from broken treaty promises.
“As leaders, it feels like our people’s basic human needs are being used as bargaining chips,” Halverson said. “Food should never be a weapon.”
Feeding South Dakota: More people using food network
Stacey Andernacht, a spokeswoman for Feeding South Dakota, said her organization’s statewide food distribution network has also seen a boost in support over the past month.
Shortly after the shutdown began, the group put up a banner on its website asking for support to provide 500,000 more meals in response to both a pre-shutdown spike in need and the anticipated need that would appear with a loss or cut in SNAP benefits.
The help has been welcome and necessary, but Andernacht said it’s unrealistic to expect donations to cover the loss of SNAP. The program provides nine meals for every one that Feeding South Dakota does, she said.
“You’d be talking about trying to grow our inventory ten times,” she said.
Feeding South Dakota does about 100 mobile food distribution events each month. Last week saw 25 such distributions. Not all of them saw an increase in visitors, but the average increase for those that did was 21%.
In July, the organization asked for $3 million from state government in the state’s upcoming budget to continue to help the same number of families it historically has. Earlier this month, Feeding South Dakota said its need has grown beyond that amount; meanwhile, South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden told South Dakota Searchlight he was unaware of the funding request.
On Monday, Andernacht said the organization has been “hyperfocused on the response” to the SNAP situation and hasn’t re-engaged with lawmakers on funding. She expects the topic to come up when the Legislature convenes for the 2026 session in January, though.
“The community is engaging and we’re getting great support, but it’s hard when you start from behind,” she said.
