Stimulus funds measures advance

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) " A Senate committee voted Wednesday for two measures that will enable the state to accept nearly $300 million in federal stimulus funding to help jobless Nevadans.

Most of the money will be used to extend the period in which about 109,000 Nevadans already on the jobless rolls can get unemployment checks. There's also another $77 million to provide benefits to as many as 6,000 more jobless Nevadans.

ACR17 establishes that the state will accept all federal funding available to help the jobless. AB469 would make statutory changes needed so Nevada could access the $77 million in extra unemployment funding.

The measures were approved by the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee and now move to the full Senate for a final legislative test. They were approved last week by the state Assembly.

Lawmakers say the state's unemployment trust fund, from which jobless benefits are paid out, could be wiped out by the end of this year without the stimulus funds. The benefit payment period now runs for up to 79 weeks.

Gov. Jim Gibbons, who had earlier concerns about accepting federal stimulus funds to expand jobless benefits, has said he's now willing to take all such funds, estimated at more than $291 million.

By accepting the funds, the state would have to change its qualification rules for unemployment claims. Gibbons had said earlier that could lead to higher unemployment insurance taxes for Nevada businesses in the future.

Lawmakers say that expanding the pool of qualified claimants without the federal stimulus money would probably require an increase in an unemployment tax rate paid by employers from 1.33 percent to 1.38 percent.

But legislators also said that with the federal stimulus money, the state could expand the claimant pool without raising the tax rate, and when the federal money runs out the state laws expanding the benefits could be changed.