$30M approved by Nevada Legislature for food aid as SNAP stoppage looms

The Nevada Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee has approved moving $30 million from its contingency account to the Food Insecurity Nevada Plan, which will support the state’s food banks amid the federal government’s ongoing shutdown.

SNAP, which provides $90 million a month to nearly 500,000 Nevadans, will stop disbursing money starting Saturday, according to the United States Department of Agriculture without intervention from the government. Three Square, which will receive around 80% of the funding, said it would need to double the amount of food it typically distributes to meet the upcoming demand.

With that massive influx, the interim committee also approved an additional $200,000 for the Nevada National Guard to support both Three Square and the Food Bank of Northern Nevada’s efforts.

Three Square will set up two drive-through distribution locations Saturday, Three Square CEO Beth Martino wrote in a letter to the committee, with two more “anchor partners” doubling their distribution.

Three Square will also be using “preboxed and palletized products” to keep the line moving, Martino wrote.

Beginning next week, Martino said that Three Square will start a “sustained, high-volume response” with “regional partners.” That means increasing how much food households receive, running pop-up centers in areas with high food insecurity and extending hours of operation.

Three Square will also expand delivery options for those who cannot go to the in-person distribution locations, Martino said.

Speaking to the Interim Finance Committee on Thursday, Martino said that the allocated resources are meaningful, but that she’s “always going to be honest.”

“This is not enough to meet the need, and there’s probably no way that philanthropy can fill this gap,” she said. “The answer is to reopen the government and run these programs as intended.”

The provisions made during the meeting would take 10 to 12 weeks “to move back into the community at minimum,” Martino continued.

Along with the $30.2 million approved by the Interim Finance Committee, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office recently submitted emergency work programs to move $7.8 million into the Food Insecurity Nevada Plan. The Nevada Department of Agriculture provided an additional $800,000 through restructuring its budget, according to the governor’s office.

That $8.6 million has already been distributed to the two food banks, according to Tiffany Greenameyer, director of the governor’s office of finance.

But even before the SNAP deadline, Martino said at Wednesday’s Board of Examiners meeting that Three Square has seen an uptick in need. Over the last four months, there’s been a 16% increase in people coming into food pantries, she said.

First-time visitors make up 75% of that surge, according to Martino.

Martino said that several partners have communicated to Three Square that they were running out of food amid the shutdown. Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, D-Las Vegas, noted that the number of SNAP recipients dwarfs the number of federal employees out of work.

Looking at federal employees out of work and the looming SNAP suspension, “these conditions create the most acute food access risk Southern Nevada has faced since the 2020 pandemic response,” Martino wrote in her letter.

SNAP is the most efficient program to combat hunger in the country’s history, Nevada Treasurer Zach Conine, a Democrat, told the Sun before Thursday’s meeting. As a general rule, every dollar that goes to food stamps has a similar impact as $3 for food distribution, Conine said.

“In order for the state to provide as much support to food banks as what will be lost through SNAP for that population, the state would need to put approximately $270 million into food banks,” he said.

While the USDA detailed in a now-deleted document how its contingency funds could be used to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program running, it’s now taking the opposite position. That account can’t be used to supplement benefits that haven’t been appropriated, according to the agency.

The change in position shocked former USDA attorneys who spoke with the treasurer’s office, Conine said.

Conine said President Donald Trump’s administration isn’t serious about looking for solutions, instead using this moment as leverage to end the shutdown with the Republican-led stopgap funding bill. 

Democrats in the Senate have been holding out over one ask: extending a health care tax credit that would prevent an incoming spike in certain health care premiums. U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., has been one of a handful of Democratic-aligned Senators voting for the GOP’s bill.

“The whole purpose of SNAP is to provide nutritional assistance to Americans who need it. It’s why it exists, and so the thought that it is being weaponized by this administration in order to put leverage on Democrats in Congress,” he said, stopping for a second.

“I just — I don’t know,” Conine said. “I’ve been in politics for six-and-a-half years now, but this is amongst the most disgusting things I've ever seen.”

In a letter last week, Lombardo told Democratic U.S. Reps. Steven Horsford, Dina Titus and Susie Lee to push U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., to support the GOP’s continuing resolution.

“Nevadans deserve a functioning federal government, not political brinkmanship,” the governor wrote. “It’s time to put partisanship aside and get the government back to work.”

Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, believes that the federal government’s withholding of SNAP benefits is illegal, joining a multistate lawsuit Tuesday to force the USDA to use its contingency funds during the shutdown.

A Massachusetts judge said at Thursday’s hearing on the case that it was difficult to understand how the current situation isn’t an emergency, rebuking the government. The judge indicated that she would issue a decision later in the day, but none had been made at the time of publication.

“The Trump Administration’s choice to cut SNAP benefits is not only a deliberate, cruel and extraordinarily harmful decision, it is unlawful,” Ford wrote in a statement. “I understand the stress of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, because I’ve lived it. I don’t wish that stress on any Nevadan.”

Trump has put out mixed signals on SNAP, telling reporters this week that “we’re going to get it done” when talking about the program. There are both Democrat- and GOP-led bills that would support SNAP amid the shutdown.

“The Democrats have caused the problem on food stamps,” Trump said, according to ABC News. “All they have to do is sign.”