WASHINGTON — The Bush administration says it is making steady progress in steering more federal taxpayer dollars to religious charities.

In the budget year that ended Sept. 30, religious charities received $2.15 billion in federal grants to administer a range of social service programs for the needy. That represented 10.9 percent of the total grants from the seven federal agencies such charities were eligible to apply to in fiscal 2005, according to a White House report obtained by The Associated Press.

The Housing and Urban Development Department awarded the highest percentage of its competitive, discretionary funding to religious charities — 24 percent — while the Health and Human Services Department had the lowest at 7.4 percent.

The 2005 amount is 7 percent higher than the year before, when $2 billion — or 10.3 percent of the total — was awarded to religious charities, the report said.

Jim Towey, who directs the so-called faith-based initiative for Bush, said the most important measure is not how many dollars were awarded but whether religious charities are being treated fairly.

"We think faith-based groups are more competitive, but there are barriers they still face," he said in an interview. "The president is changing a culture of grant-making and there's a headwind."

Bush will be discussing some of those barriers along with the statistics today before dozens of religious leaders invited by the White House to its annual conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

In a speech at a Washington hotel, Bush was also touting the addition of the 11th federal office dedicated to dealing with religious charities. Earlier this week, he signed an executive order creating such an office at the Homeland Security Department.