Editorial: Handicapped need chance to succeed

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

WITH less than a month to go before the Legislature meets, the state should release funds to help the mentally handicapped.

This is not a feel-good program for the unfortunate. Job services can provide the handicapped with a unique opportunity to attain productive lives. The programs also give hope to families living every day with special emotional challenges.

A bad budget estimate two years ago left more than 100 families out in the cold. As a SUN story reported Sunday, the families have been shut out of the state-funded Community Training Center job program, some for more than a year.

Legislators on the Interim Financing Committee were unable to help this year since, by law, they only can act on requests for financial help. Gov. Bob Miller's administration had frozen the program and refused to ask for more funds, arguing the reserves had dropped to about $1 million. Perry Comeaux, the state budget director, also questioned whether an appropriation would fit the intent of the emergency fund.

About $600,000 is needed to accommodate the extra people who have moved into Nevada. But only a small portion of that would carry the program into the 1997 legislative session. Nevada already is far behind the curve in providing such programs, ranking 47th in the nation. The least that should be done is to maintain service levels as the Legislature intended.

State Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, wants to provide a partial appropriation to restore services by early next year and then provide a full budget before the session is ended. He also advocates a special contingency fund in the event money runs short in the next biennium.

That makes good sense. It also makes sense to cut loose some of the state's contingency fund between now and January to help out families forced to provide baby sitting or other services. If nothing else, it would give highly stressed home situations much needed relief.

It's not right to penalize those with the least political clout for budget missteps. Like everyone else, they deserve to succeed.