State panel votes for higher welfare benefits in Nevada

Brendan Riley

Wednesday, Nov. 17, 1999 | 10:15 a.m.

CARSON CITY - The Nevada Welfare Board, told of a big surplus in a fund for cash grants to the poor, is calling for the state's first grant increase in nearly a decade.

The recommendation goes to the 2001 Legislature, which will have final say on the plan that would raise the state's basic welfare grant from $348 for a family of three to just under $500.

That would be accomplished by basing grants on 60 percent of the basic need level in 1999. The state now uses 1991 - the last year basic grant levels were raised in Nevada - as the "need" year.

"I'm ecstatic. This shows that the Welfare Board is as concerned about making the grant level a humane level as we are," Marci Wehry of the Nevada Empowered Women's Project said following the panel's meeting in Reno on Monday.

Wehry, Jan Gilbert of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and Jon Sasser of Washoe Legal Services all urged the board to endorse the higher grants.

A surplus in federal welfare funds is increasing because the number of Nevadans getting assistance has dropped dramatically -from a high of more than 42,000 to less than 17,000.

Prior to 1996 congressional reforms, Nevada spent up to $50 million a year on welfare grants - and now it's just $27.6 million. The surplus is about $10 million, and that figure should climb to nearly $18 million by June and $25 million by mid-2002.

Raising the basic welfare grant to just under $500 a month would use up about $9 million of the surplus.

The push for a grant increase follows an Oct. 1 cutoff date for spending federal money left over from previous years on ancillary services - anything other than cash grants and other basic needs.

State Welfare Division officials say they want to hang onto enough money to provide basic grants to more people if there's an economic downturn that could boost the welfare rolls again.

They also say that while basic grants haven't gone up in years, Nevada has come a long way in using extra welfare funds to expand various ancillary services. That includes teen pregnancy and domestic violence prevention programs, transportation and child care assistance for the working poor, job training, and bonuses for staying on the job.