Money set aside to help the poor pay utility bills goes untapped

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, June 7, 2004 | 11:27 a.m.

Thirteen million dollars meant to help the state's poor pay their utility bills is sitting in a bank account unused because a 3-year-old program remains largely unknown.

State officials say they're sure the need for the program is there, but they haven't been able to find the needy.

"We've tried the traditional methods ... to let people know we had lots of money to help lots of people ... but it didn't do the job," said Linda Mercer, energy assistance program manager of the Nevada Welfare Division.

The issue becomes particularly critical as days with triple-digit temperatures become routine while the numbers of people in need grow along with the rest of the population.

"This means life and death for some people," said Richard Sevigny, who works with the Clark County Community Resources Management Department. Sevigny is teaming up with the state to get the word out about the program in the coming weeks, including an effort to train county and Las Vegas offices on the basics of the program.

The program dates from late 2001. Since then, residents of the Las Vegas Valley have paid a few extra cents on their power and gas bills every month; those cents have added up and gone to the state-managed program for the poor created by a bill passed in the 2001 Legislature. The same idea has been applied in the rest of the state, and the money collected is called the "universal energy charge."

Though up to 200,000 people statewide might be poor enough to qualify for the program, according to Mercer, only about 7,000 have signed up this year, using about $4.4 million of the $17.5 million the program has collected.

The effort to get the money in the hands of those who need it also includes an English- and Spanish-language ad campaign, which an out-of-state marketing firm rolled out last week.

Since the campaign began, applications to the program have tripled, going from an average of 40 a day to 120 a day, said Nancy Kennison, who also works with the program at the welfare division.

Additional staff, including bilingual employees, have also been hired statewide to deal with an anticipated increase in applications, Mercer said.

Voices on both ends of the program said the ramped-up attempt to make it more effective is long overdue.

One voice belongs to Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, one of the principal sponsors of the 2001 bill that led to the program.

The other is from Steve, who declined to offer his last name and lived on the streets until six months ago. Steve recently found out about the program through a friend and will soon apply.

Goldwater said it should not have taken nearly three years -- the first funds were deposited in the bank in the fall of 2001, Mercer said -- to adopt the new measures.

"It's unacceptable to administer a program this way," Goldwater said.

"When we put a program in place, we go through a thorough analysis of the need, costs, benefits, what they're going to do and when."

The lawmaker, who chairs the Legislature's commerce and labor committee, said he would be looking into the program's slow take-off.

At the same time, he said he was assured in the 2003 legislative session that "people were starting to take advantage of the program and that it was going to be working ... unfortunately, the Legislature only meets every two years."

Steve has already used some of the many programs meant to help the valley's poor.

When told that information on the energy assistance program was just now getting to municipal government offices throughout the valley, he said, "Come on -- it took 'em three years to figure that out?"

Steve is a Vietnam-era veteran who worked for a decade at Las Vegas casinos, in jobs ranging from porter to security. Then he got a job in the MASH Village homeless shelter downtown, and became homeless himself when the shelter closed in 2002.

Getting off the streets involved what he called "going from one side of town to another" for months, until he finally got approved for Veteran's Administration benefits, which at $824 a month enabled him to afford an apartment on Maryland Avenue for $450 a month. He receives $30 a month in food stamps as well.

Steve said "the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing" in many of the programs he went to for help.

Not having lived through a summer in his new apartment, he doesn't know how high his power bills will go in the coming months.

But if he doesn't get approved by the energy assistance program, and the bills rise above $50, "it would mean I have to cut down on food or ... something else," he said.

Looking back at her experience with the program to date, Mercer said, "I guess the question is, should we have considered an aggressive marketing program ... based on hindsight, I guess we should have.

"It is a very different and complicated program, and you can't expect it to build up to its full potential right away," she said. "Anyone who expects it to reach the people it needs to reach in 1, 2 or 3 years is mistaken -- it takes up to 5 years."

The program was hampered in its first year, Mercer said, by having a computer program that couldn't evaluate applicants based on income and power use, the two basic factors used to determine eligibility. The state had another program based on federal dollars meant to help the poor with their utility bills and had to switch to a new one, she said.

To get the help, a person has to be at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level, which ranges from $1,163 monthly gross income for one person to $2,356 for four people.

When it became apparent that press releases, information added to the back of Nevada Power bills and fliers handed out in schools weren't adequately getting the word out, Mercer said, her office decided to seek outside help.

In the first fiscal year ended June 30, 2002, $6.85 million was collected for the program, but only $2 million was spent statewide. About 65 to 70 percent of the money spent goes to Southern Nevada, Mercer said.

The next year, $8 million dropped into the account; when added to the $4.8 million left unspent the previous year, there was $12.83 million in the program. But only $3.4 million was spent.

With such results, Mercer said, "It became clear we needed a professional marketing firm."

The process for contracting with such a firm, including a request for proposals and approval by the state, took about seven months.

"It's a very long and cumbersome process," she said.

The company chosen, Vitalink, will charge the state $150,000 for the next 12 months.

This year, there was $17.46 million in the program; an estimated $4.4 million will be spent.

Mercer hopes spending will jump to $7.8 million million next year, which would help about 13,000 people.

"We're here, we're geared up, we have a lot of money and want to serve the households in most need," she said."