Tuesday, June 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- The Southern Nevada Children's Home in Boulder City is hanging on by a thread after a move to close it fell one vote short in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.
The committee may take another vote today or later this week. And the Senate Finance Committee must agree with any budget decision.
The drive to shut down the home was led by Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Minden, who said the "preferential model" is to put children in foster homes, rather than in the facility for abused and neglected youngsters.
The costs total $1.6 million to house 30 children, Hettrick said Monday night. It's far less expensive and it's more appropriate to find foster homes for these boys and girls, he said.
He said he doesn't understand why the committee wants to keep the home open.
Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, replied, "Because Gov. (Mike) O'Callaghan says so," referring to the former governor and executive editor of the Las Vegas SUN.
Hettrick replied, "Nobody else says so."
O'Callaghan has argued that closing the home could split up siblings and eliminate a valuable asset for the welfare of the state's children.
Hettrick moved to close the home and lease it to Boulder City for $1 a year. He said the city could negotiate with St. Jude's Ranch for Children, which may want to take over the facility.
The committee vote was 7-6 in favor but it was one vote shy of the majority needed. Assemblyman John Marvel, R-Battle Mountain, was absent.
Father Herbert A. Ward Jr., head of St. Jude's Ranch, said last week there haven't been any "concrete proposals" received from government officials to assume control of the children's home.
He said the board of trustees of St. Jude's would make the decision and it's premature to speculate what it will decide.
Assemblywoman Vonne Chowning, D-North Las Vegas, said, "The people from Boulder City tried to get a proposal from St. Jude's. As of four hours ago, it isn't going to happen."
Volunteers of America currently leases the facility and is paid $90 a day for a child with a guarantee of 50 beds. Darrel Rexwinkel, administrative services officer of the state Division of Children and Family Services, said the nonprofit organization feels it needs $87 a day with a guarantee of 30 beds to stay at Boulder City.
The division wants to change the nature of the operation. It proposes to spend $985,000 to refurbish the cottages. In the interim, Volunteers of America would operate three cottages for about one year while the other four were refurbished.
The division would then bring in foster parents to live in these cottages to take care of the children. The parents would be specially trained and each cottage would be operated as a foster home with up to five children.
The foster parents would be paid $800 a month. The state would have social workers available to help the parents.
Chowning moved to get a committee vote on the division's proposal but it was sidetracked.
The state has allowed the home to fall into disrepair and nobody is satisfied with the current operation. But division officials said Volunteers of America has run a good operation.
In other action, the committee voted to add $1.4 million in unexpected federal funds to the state Health Division's budget to provide drugs to 316 AIDS patients and to take care of a waiting list of 62 individuals. But it delayed a vote on whether to add more than $2 million in state money for protease inhibitors, a newer, stronger formula.
Assemblywoman Jan Evans, D-Sparks, said the results were "startling" for those who use the protease inhibitors. "They gain weight, go back to work and become taxpayers," she said.
The vote was put off until more discussion can take place with Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, a co-chairman of a health subcommittee. Rawson was absent Monday because of the death of his mother.
The committee denied the request of the Nevada Supreme Court to upgrade the secretaries of the justices by 10 percent to $40,000 a year, with some of them earning $48,000 by the end of the coming biennium. Assemblywoman Kathy Von Tobel, R-Las Vegas, said, "They're not getting chump change now. They are getting good salaries."
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