Discussion: 5 comments so far...

1. By dwms

   6/30/09 at 8:44 p.m.

   Suggest removal

   Some funding is earmarked for Clark County. (Reference U.S. DHHS $400,000 for their fiscal year October 2008 to 2009.) This funding is allocated only if distributed to Washoe and Clark Counties' Departments of Family Services by the State of Nevada Department of Health and Human Services. Perhaps a subsequent report could look at the sources of funding to the State of Nevada that would be eliminated if not distributed as earmarked.

2. By Martel

   6/30/09 at 11:23 p.m.

   Suggest removal

   This inequity is an old problem that no politician seems to have the will or guts to fix. Most federal dollars are allocated to the states by formula and that formula almost always includes population. That's why California gets large allocations and Nevada gets small allocations. Unfortunately, once that money gets into the hands of the state administering agencies (located in Carson City), all allocation formulas are thrown out the window. One of the reasons this continues is that the decision makers reside in Carson and have close connections to Reno. Also, when reviewing competitive grant applications submitted to state agencies, the South is typically under-represented on the grant review committees.
   It's time to let the dog wag the tail for a change. After all, if it were not for the size of the Clark County population, Northern Nevada wouldn't have diddly squat. Are there any legislators willing to make the North play fair? Or is this just one more report showing the same old problem, and one more chance for politicians to turn a blind eye to the situation.

3. By EP

   7/1/09 at 8:10 a.m.

   Suggest removal

   Looking at this report, it seems more true that Mr. Ralston's headline should have been "Rural Continues to Screw Urban," and this is a pattern often seen in the rest of the country. Why do folks in Clark County lump the entire rest of the state into the "North"? The Reno-Tahoe area is very different from Fallon, Tonopah, and Elko. We also have a disproportionately large share of our state general fund revenue coming from gaming, and most of that is in Las Vegas. So the headline could have been "South screws tourists, and Rurals get a Cut." But I guess that headline would not have been as fun.

4. By Martel

   7/1/09 at 10:37 a.m.

   Suggest removal

   Oops, after reading the report carefully, I see that it only addresses the inequity in state generated funding. My experience and previous post addressed the inequality in federal funding that is given to the state and later redistributed by the state administering agencies to the local areas. In these instances, Reno and the balance of the state often receives funding that far exceeds their percentage of the population. These are usually discretionary funds managed and awarded by state agencies and further demonstrates the systemic "stick it to Southern Nevada" attitude of many state employees/agencies.

5. By hss46

   7/1/09 at noon

   Suggest removal

   I'd like to offer an historic/legal explanation for the problems to which other commenters are pointing.

   The state bureaucracy is based almost entirely in the north and is made up of in large part of 'northerners'. Not only is the bureaucracy made up of northerners but also of Nevada natives/long term residents. The demographic evolution that has resulted in a tripling of the population in less than a generation has given us a bureaucracy is not only geographically out of step, it is also demographically out of step.

   All of this is in the context of a constitution in Nevada that has three interesting provisions, one is the limited biennial legislative session, another is the inability of the legislature to call itself into special session or to control its agenda if called into session by the Governor, and the other is a very restricitve constitutional amendment process to change the process. The result is a legislature that has all it can handle to finish its constitutionally mandated work in its regular session, let alone address the issues raise by the above comments. And since the legislature cannot work overtime on issues that would be politically responsive nor can Nevada easily change the constitutional framework, I suspect we are doomed to our current bureaucracy for the foreseeable future.

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