Stimulus fund measures advance in Nevada Legislature

The Assembly voted unanimously Friday for two measures that will enable the state to accept nearly $300 million in federal stimulus funding to help jobless Nevadans. Both measures now move to the Senate.

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.

"We, at the present time, have one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation," said Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas. "This is the least we can do to help ease their trouble at this time, as well as stimulating our economy, because this is money in their pockets will be spent."

Lawmakers said that 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.

"These funds will help us do a number of things," said Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno. "They will help Nevadans sooner than later, they will help keep our unemployment trust fund solvent, and they will also delay our borrowing federal dollars."

Nevada's unemployment rate rose to 10.1 percent in February. The rate has increased every month since the start of the national recession in December 2007.

Gov. Jim Gibbons, who had earlier concerns about accepting federal stimulus funds to expand jobless benefits, said Wednesday that 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 have said 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.

The federal Department of Labor issued a letter last week that says states may change the stimulus provisions in the future and not be required to return any of the federal funds.