Groups serving Nevada's needy told lawmakers Thursday the state is long overdue for an increase in welfare grants.
Welfare Administrator Nancy Ford told a budget subcommittee that Nevada is 49th in welfare spending per capita, and 50 out of 51 in the number of food stamp recipients per 100,000 population.
However, she said, it is in the upper half among states in the percentage of children, seniors and working families classified as living in poverty.
She said the average monthly grant for a mother and two children is $273.
Jan Gilbert of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada said it has been 13 years since Nevada's grant was increased.
"And $273 a month for a woman and two children is pathetic," she said. "I urge you to try to figure out how we can increase the grant. It is so overdue."
She was joined by John Sasser of Washoe Legal Services and others who provide services to the needy.
Ford told the subcommittee of Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Finance it would cost the state about $1.9 million a year to increase the average grant 5 percent, $3.8 million to go up 10 percent and $5.7 million for 15 percent.
Subcommittee Chairwoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said 15 percent would get the average grant for a parent with two children to $314 a month.
Ford said Nevada's federal grant for the program - Temporary Assistance to Needy Families - is about $44 million a year. She said the state also gets a supplemental $3.7 million a year as a high-growth state. The state match for that grant is about $24 million.
She said caseload is still increasing because of growth but not as rapidly.
Leslie said she was concerned that the recommended budget doesn't begin rebuilding a reserve. Ford agreed that is a worry because it was the TANF reserve that got Nevada through the period following Sept. 11, 2001, when Nevada's damaged tourist economy forced thousands of layoffs, increasing the number of people applying for welfare benefits.
"At the time of 9/11, we had a $22 million reserve," she said. "And it went away very quickly."
Leslie said the committee wanted to look into the possibility of raising benefits and rebuilding reserves.