HELENA — A Republican state senator’s bill to restrict eligibility for food stamps in Montana ran into a wall of opposition Monday, including the Bullock administration, Food Bank officials and other advocates for the poor and the hungry.

“There are people with legitimate needs who will not get services (with this bill),” said Richard Opper, director of the state Department of Public Health and Human Services. “We think this will result in people suffering.”

Opper joined more than a dozen opponents testifying Monday on Senate Bill 206, which would place new restrictions on who could qualify for federally funded food stamps, known officially as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Sponsored by Sen. Fred Thomas, R-Stevensville, SB206 says work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults who get food stamps can be waived only in high-unemployment areas.

Thomas presented the bill to the Senate Public Health Committee, which took no immediate action on the measure.

SB206 is part of legislative Republicans’ package of bills to reform health care and welfare in the state. Also Monday, a House committee heard a separate bill that would restrict who can qualify for Healthy Montana Kids, a program that provides health coverage to children in low-income households.

SB206 also would forbid the state from seeking any new “waivers” from the federal government to expand the eligibility of food stamps, which serve 125,000 people in Montana.

In its original form, the bill limits the types of food that could be purchased with food stamps and requires program recipients to get a photo ID. Thomas said he would offer amendments to strike both of those provisions.

The main change under SB206 would be in low unemployment areas, he said. The Bullock administration uses unemployment-rate averages in several counties to extend benefits into areas with lower unemployment; the bill would prohibit that practice, he said.

“The point of this bill is not to eliminate the program, but to dial it in and continue to focus Montana’s precious public dollars on the most needy in our society, and not just expand it out there to ... the wide net of anyone who’s just walking around,” Thomas said.

The changes, however, didn’t lessen the opposition to the bill, which had no supporters other than Thomas.

Directors of local food banks said the effect would be to take food stamps away from people who need the benefit, forcing them to go to food banks for assistance.

“There is no evidence that it would have any impact other than making it more difficult for low-income Montanans to get the benefits for which they qualify,” said Gayle Gifford, chief executive officer of the Montana Food Bank Network in Missoula.

Becky Warren, a dietitian for the Lewis and Clark County Public Health Department in Helena, said her clients included an unemployed man who came to her office seeking public assistance to help him take care of his grandchildren.

“It was disturbing, but touching, to see him try to take care of those kids,” she said. “I think this guy would have a hard time finding a job. Those are the people I’m concerned about.”