(The Center Square) – Departments and programs across Nevada, along with full SNAP benefits, have resumed after the end of the 43-day federal government shutdown.
But officials are uncertain when a major airport in Las Vegas will return to its full slate of flights.
One of the most fiercely debated points of the shutdown, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, returned to November’s full payments to Nevadans, as of late Thursday night.
The benefits, which were formerly known as food stamps, totaled $33 million from the federal government. The full payments came a day after the country’s longest-ever government shutdown ended Wednesday night.
“DSS has been monitoring the shutdown closely,” said Robert Thompson, administrator of the Nevada Division of Social Services, which distributes the state’s SNAP benefits.
“When DSS received word that partial benefits would be issued based on 65% of maximum SNAP benefit allotments, we immediately began working, under the full support from Governor Lombardo and his team, on system changes that would be needed to issue 100% SNAP benefits,” Thompson said. “This allowed us to quickly pivot and ensure benefits were loaded onto EBT cards as fast as possible.”
All electronic benefit cards across Nevada were fully loaded Thursday night with SNAP benefits for November, DHS Public Information Officer Kristle Muessle told The Center Square.
Roughly 500,000 people across Nevada use SNAP benefits, with more than 62% belonging to a family with children and more than 41 percent in working families, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In total, the federal government gave Nevadans $1.01 billion in SNAP benefits last year.
On the same day the government shutdown ended, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo called Nevada’s legislators into a special session. The state’s 36th special session, which had been teased for months, was set to consider state-level funding to make up for SNAP, according to Nevada Democratic leaders last week. With the return of federal SNAP funds, local funding is no longer in discussion, but the special session is dealing with 20 or so other bills.
Roughly 1.4 million federal employees were furloughed – sent home without pay – or ordered to keep working without wages until the shutdown ended, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. After the shutdown ended, operations returned to normal on Thursday, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said in a Wednesday letter.
Backpay for federal employees is legally required “at the earliest date possible,” according to a 2019 law.
But last month during the shutdown, President Donald Trump suggested not all federal employees will be paid for their work. “For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” Trump said in an Oval Office press conference on Oct. 7. “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we will take care of them in a different way.”
Airports will likely take longer to return to normal operations as air traffic controller numbers dwindled in the shutdown. Transportation Security Administration workers and other airport employees were furloughed or forced to work without pay across the country as the shutdown dragged on into November.
Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, deemed one of 40 “high-traffic” airports by the Federal Aviation Administration, was forced to keep air traffic reduced by 6% on Wednesday. Cancellations and delays were expected to continue until, “the trend lines are moving in the right direction,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Wednesday.
The FAA did not specify when normal operations could be expected. A spokesperson for Harry Reid International Airport told The Center Square that the airport did not know when traffic restrictions would be lifted.
