EBT cards will be unavailable for 24 hours this weekend

The outage will impact 28,000 EBT card holders on public assistance in Sonoma County, officials said.|

About 28,000 Sonoma County residents who receive CalFresh, CalWORKS and or general assistance will be unable to use their ATM-type cards during a 24-hour period this weekend, county officials said Thursday.

The state electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, system will down due to a change in vendor operations, officials said. Residents with EBT cards should make purchases or withdraw funds prior to the scheduled outage at 11 p.m. Saturday.

Kim Seamans, county economic assistance director, said her division has been notifying EBT holders of the planned outage since April. The state also mailed notices in early June.

EBT cards currently are issued to about 28,000 Sonoma County residents who receive CalFresh and or CalWORKS, as well as 200 people who receive public assistance, Seamans said.

She said retailers who take EBT cards will have to swap card-swiping machines.

Old EBT cards should still work on the new machines, provided by Fidelity Information Services, officials said. The old vendor was Conduent, formerly Xerox.

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