About 220,000 Coloradans who rely on food assistance from the federal government won’t get another payment until the shutdown ends, and the state is trying to figure out what it can do if the federal government is still closed when the next payment comes due in March.

The federal government covers 100 percent of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, and it splits administrative costs with Colorado’s Department of Human Services. The agency has been reaching out to recipients throughout January. First DHS moved the deadline to recertify for benefits up by a week to Jan. 15. Then, the agency had to tell recipients that their February benefits will be deposited a week early, and it’s possible no money will be coming in March.

“Participants should plan food purchases carefully throughout January and February so their food needs are met through the partial government shutdown,” according to a post on DHS’s website.

Colorado theoretically could pay SNAP recipients out of its general fund in March, but it isn’t clear the federal government would repay that debt when it reopens.

“We don’t know. At this point there’s no iron-clad guarantee that even federal workers will receive back pay,” Gov. Jared Polis told the Joint Budget Committee during a meeting Wednesday. “This is so unlike many other shutdowns in that we really don’t have a sense of what the duration will be.”

The partial shutdown of the federal government is now the longest in U.S. history, hitting Day 28 on Friday. Tensions in Washington, D.C., appeared to escalate this week with no end to the shutdown in sight.

Colorado Department of Human Services spokesperson Mark Techmeyer said the agency is working to get an answer about whether the state could be reimbursed if it covers payments for federal programs like SNAP during the shutdown.

“I think we all thought it would be over by now,” said Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who sits on the state’s budget committee. “But if the federal government won’t act, I believe Colorado has a long history of stepping up and doing what we need to do to ensure our citizens’ needs are covered.”

Food Bank of the Rockies is one of the places that traditionally helps people in these situations, but Janie Gianotsos, the food bank’s marketing director, said they’re bracing for their own federal funding cuts.

“It’s really kind of a looming, very scary situation,” Gianotsos said.

Food Bank of the Rockies distributes food and essentials to people through its own programs and partner agencies. The federal government sends the food bank truckloads of fresh food and canned goods through a program called Emergency Food Assistance Program, and it also helps the food bank cover some of the costs of its boxed meals for children and older Coloradans.

“The lady that runs the senior box program was up here the other day and she was tearing up saying, ‘What if I have to tell them they’re not getting a box?'” Gianotsos said.

The food bank has a modest rainy-day fund that it can use to keep the pantries stocked for a while, but, Gianotsos said, “it all depends on how long it rains.”