Southern Nevada Children’s Home prepares for closing

Friday, Sept. 19, 1997 | 10:21 a.m.

"It's a sensitive issue, and I think we went about it in a sensitive way," Steve Shaw, director of the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services, said in discussing the move.

Shaw told the legislative Interim Finance Committee on Thursday that most of the 44 children remaining in the home after the Legislature voted this summer to discontinue its funding have been placed in residences. The children range in ages from four to 15.

Shaw said 22 children are in therapeutic foster care, six have been reunited with their families, one was placed with a relative, two are in group homes and five are with foster parents.

Four children will be placed in foster care Monday, and the other four will be out by Sept. 30. At its peak, the home accommodated 70 children.

The 1997 Legislature provided funding for the home until Oct. 1.

Any efforts to keep the seven-cottage home afloat with additional funding were put to rest in a recent letter from the Legislative Counsel Bureau to Sen. Jon Porter, R-Boulder.

Scott G. Wasserman, chief deputy legislative counsel, told Porter that the Interim Finance Committee can't spend emergency money on the home because the Legislature has voted to shut it down.

Porter was disappointed that the facility will close, but said he'll continue to monitor the well-being of the children.

In other action, the IFC:

-Demanded answers from Nevada officials over how an outside company could embezzle at least $608,000 and maybe more than $1 million in state insurance funds. Lawmakers also want to know when a backlog of medical claims created by the L&H Associates scam will be honored.

-Voted to pump $700,000 into a newly created Transportation Services Authority. Another $1.3 million was approved for the state's new utilities commission, mainly to pay for additional staffers.

-Requested a report on charges that state health officials have severely cut back federal AIDS awareness funding for northern Nevada minority programs.