WIC ‘smart cards’ plan taking hold

By Timothy Pratt

Friday, May 6, 2005 | 9:33 a.m.

A pioneering federal project has provided 12,000 low-income mothers in the Las Vegas Valley with computer-chip cards to buy food for their families since rolling out in January, officials say.

The "smart card," part of the federally funded Women, Infants and Children program, is a technology that officials say saves taxpayers money while making more money available for poor families to shop whenever they want.

The valley became the first metropolitan area with more than a million residents nationwide to switch from paper checks to the cards earlier this year. So far, more than a third of the estimated 35,000 valley residents in the program have gotten the cards with the computer chips in them.

About 75 percent of those people are Hispanic, said Louise Jones-Ports, management analyst for the state Bureau of Family Health Services.

The purpose of the WIC food program is to insure that mothers, infants and children up to 5 years of age are well nourished. Educational programs and monthly financial benefits are the tools used to try to meet that goal.

With the new card, participants in the program can shop as many times as they like during the month and the computer chips record how much money is left in each participant's monthly benefits. With paper checks, families had to do all their monthly shopping at one time.

The new technology was tested during the last four years in Washoe County, Jones Ports said in January. During that time, switching to the cards allowed the state to reduce administrative staff and increase the number of people in the program.

Seven of the 14 clinics in the valley that administer the program have gotten the technology and training to use the cards since January, officials said Thursday.

Half of the 14 clinics are run by the Economic Opportunity Board, a nonprofit organization. The others are run by Sunrise Hospital or Clark County.

Additionally, officials say that 73 of about 125 stores in the valley were now equipped to handle the new smart cards.

The clinics, program participants and stores without cards should be up to speed by early next year.