And here now, to help verify that is Zach Conine, Nevada State Treasurer.

Treasurer, welcome back to Nevada Week.

Happy to be here.

$38.8 million.

Is that all that's available for this issue?

Absolutely not.

Right.

And I think we should start with what snap is.

Snap is food and dollars that go on the tables of Nevada's families, says, Congresswoman Lee said 495,000 families, more than half of the individuals that get Snap are children at 495,000 Nevadans.

And you know, when we say it's supplemental, the second words, right, nutrition.

This isn't about making sure that half a million Nevadans can get dessert.

This is making sure that half a million Nevadans don't go to bed hungry.

So what is available then?

We have $1.29 billion in the rainy day fund.

When I took office, we had the pandemic right after the pandemic.

We had $0.

Today we have $1.29 billion.

That's more money than we've ever had in the rainy day fund.

Now, a lot of that has to do with our investment returns, which have been over $1 billion.

Also has to do with the recovery that we had after the pandemic.

But the point of the rainy day fund is to deal with emergencies.

When the governor says that the end fund balance has to get below 5%, is that what's required in order to use that fund, the rainy day fund?

Well, I'm a lawyer, so let's go to the law.

Nevada Revised Statute 353, where it talks about the account for stabilization of government, or as we call it, the rainy day fund.

There are three ways that you can tap into the rainy day fund balance.

If revenues if taxes collected are less than 5% of expectations, that is not the case right now.

If the legislature in full session decides to go into it.

So if we were in a special session, they could go into the rainy day fund that way.

Or if the declaration of a fiscal emergency is called by the legislature and the governor.

Just recently, the speaker of the Nevada Assembly declared that it was a fiscal emergency.

So what we need now is for the governor to also agree that 495,000 Nevadans going hungry is a fiscal emergency.

And so the governor says that this current plan will fund Snap beneficiaries through mid November, which I guess that's that's debatable because this is food banks.

These this is not Snap recipients getting that money directly.

But when he says that that is meant to last through mid November, then he'll consider reversing Arpa funds that are not being used and that do not require legislative approval.

Is that possible?

Is this him being fiscally responsible?

Let's wait until we get to that point.

The thought of 495,000 Nevadans going hungry.

More than 200,000 Nevada children going hungry.

Is this the time for us to say, oh gosh, we should save a penny here.

We should save a penny here.

Know what we should be doing is using every lever available to government to make sure that Nevadans are fed.

Look, this is not the state's fault, right?

We did not do this.

The federal shutdown and the president's desire to remove health care from a massive amount of Americans.

That's not our fault, but it is our problem.

And as Nevada's leaders, we have a responsibility to pull every lever.

If the door is closed, we got to go through the window.

If the windows closed, as some say, we got to go through the wall, right?

We should not, as the speaker said, take no for an answer here.

We just can't do it.

How soon do you think this needs to happen?

Now.

It should have happened last week.

Why?

Why does it have to happen now?

When the governor has this plan that's supposed to go through mid November?

We have amazing food banks in the state of Nevada, both three square, the Northern Nevada Food bank.

We're going to receive a lion's share of the money.

We also have great groups like the just one project who are going to do everything they can, but every dollar that goes into Snap requires $3 into a food bank to have the same level of outcome.

And remember, snap our cards.

These are in people's hands.

They can go to the grocery store without the shame of going to a food bank.

They can go to the grocery store without having to leave work, right when we don't pay snap benefits or.

And if we can't pay Snap benefits.

And this is really important if the mechanics of paying Snap benefits are too hard, we should pay food assistance benefits through the Tanev program.

We should find other ways to get money in people's pockets, because if we don't, it's not just the direct impact of half a million Nevadans being hungry, right?

Which is bad enough.

It's the fact that those Nevadans are going to take money that could be paying their rental payments, and it's going to go to that.

Those Nevadans are going to take that money that could be going to their car payments and general, that they're going to skip prescription drug purchases.

They are going to have a worse life because we have not solved a problem.

We have the resources to solve.

If the governor decided, yes, let's go with that plan and get funding directly into the hands of Nevadans who utilize Snap.

How long would that take to actually happen, that money to get into those bank accounts?

So the vendor has confirmed to us that if we get a list of recipients and amounts.

And that's not a simple thing, right?

We got to use all the government to figure out the best way to do that.

And Congresswoman Lee, you talked about, right.

If we can't use the Snap file because the Trump administration is blocking us from doing it, let's use other files or other programs or I don't think we've covered that.

So when we're trying to send money to Nevadans right through that system, we have to be able to tell the vendor we're trying to send, you know, Bob Smith $10, right.

And Bob Smith, $10, and some information about now the stat file has all the information we need in it.

But the Trump administration just last week said, hey, you can't use that to feed people, which is the point of the file.

And attorneys general around the country have sued because they don't agree.

That's true.

I'm a lawyer, I don't agree that's true.

It's not a privacy issue.

It's we're sending money to people who would have snap benefits.

We're using Snap data to provide food to individuals who is harmed here.

Correct.

But if we can't do that right, we should use the Tanna file, which has a lot of overlap with Snap recipients.

We should use other files of aid that we do.

We should figure out how as government we can solve this problem.

Like look, excuses are great, but nobody can eat excuses.

They need food.

And back to how long that would take to actually get money directly into the hands.

We have confirmed with the vendor that if we have a list of recipients, that is format in the correct way, and that's going to take some time, but it's not going to take months.

How long would that 48 hours after we have the list?

48 hours.

And they confirm that last week.

That's when the Trump administration said, whoa, you can't use that file.

That file that's only for snap.

And we think that files for feeding people.

Okay, so 48 hours to get that data.

And then how long did you say 48 hours to get money in the hands of folks.

Once we get that data, I don't know how long it's going to take to get that data because we don't have those levers.

Those are the governor's levers.

When we talk about a special legislative session, would that be needed in order to declare this emergency, that Assembly Speaker Steve Baker?

No, no, it can be done through the Interim Finance Committee if necessary.

But, you know, again, if we need a special session, we're about to have one that should be on the agenda.

Well, it's interesting that you say that because the governor seemed a little hesitant to commit to a special session actually happening.

You don't know I don't know, you know, I mean, the governor has the power to call a special session of the legislature.

Legislature can also call itself back in.

But that threshold is much higher.

We certainly have been hearing and expect and the governor has said that there will be a special session at some point, probably in November, in order to deal with some unfinished business, quote unquote, from the legislative process.

I think as the speaker of the Assembly said yesterday, it's hard to imagine that there is something else more important out there than feeding half a million.

Nevada fact this is 1 in 5 Nevadans.

These are people on your street.

What the governor said about the special session is that it's still under evaluation.

Last question.

How would you respond to his argument that if we try to put hands, if we try to put money directly into the hands of Nevadans, we will violate USDA restrictions and we may not get reimbursed for the money we are giving.

Well, I'll take the second part first.

I don't think we're going to get reimbursed for any money we put out through these programs regardless.

Correct.

And we moved past that as soon as we realized that it was going to be half a million Nevadans, more than 200,000 children who are hungry, and we've got $1.29 billion in the rainy day fund sitting there.

What is that money for, if not for the protections of Nevadans who are at their weakest, who are at their hungriest?

Right before Thanksgiving, we're going to turn around and say, well, we might not get reimbursed.

Let's not spend this money.

Right?

I absolutely want to make sure we do everything we can to get reimbursed, but whether or not we get reimbursed should not make the determination about whether or not we do the right thing here.

State Treasurer Zach Conine, thank you for joining Nevada.

We are happy to be here.