A federal judge has ordered the state of Indiana to speed up food stamp application processing.

South Bend federal Chief Judge Robert L. Miller signed a preliminary injunction in a class action lawsuit last week giving the state one year to hit 80 percent compliance with federal laws that say applications must be processed within 30 days and applications from particularly needy households must be processed within one week.

The state has 18 months to reach 90 percent compliance with those laws.

The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit heralded the preliminary injunction as a victory for poor families.

"The injunction benefits the thousands of Indiana families and individuals who are hungry and need food stamps in order to get by," said Tedde Tasheff, of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, in a new release.

Marcus Barlow, spokesman for the Indiana Family and Social Service Administration, said his department's officials never argued the state's compliance rates were acceptable. Historically, those rates have been too low, he said.

The state didn't oppose the injunction. Deputy Attorney General Michael Carter wrote a letter asking Miller to order the state to boost compliance.

"It provides the agency with sufficient time and realistic benchmarks to make significant improvements in compliance that will benefit members of the class," Carter wrote.

The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit filed in April claimed data showed the state was processing several applications too slowly. From April 2007 to September 2008, only 62 percent of expedited approvals were processed in time, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report.

The class action suit is not resolved. The parties agree the state's compliance with the new injunction will influence how the suit progresses.