Foresty division will collect $600,000 in fire costs

Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2000 | 4:23 a.m.

Forestry officials say the demands for fire fighting resources have slowed in recent weeks. With fewer people on the fire lines, that means more time to bill other agencies for costs incurred by the state.

So far, $1.5 million in bills have been sent to the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, the two agencies with the biggest debts, for fire fighting costs the state has picked up since July.

"We've talked to the Forest Service and BLM and they're processing as fast as we can get them to them," state forester Roy Trenoweth told a legislative panel Tuesday.

The Interim Finance Committee voted to extend the time that the Division of Forestry has to pay back the $3 million appropriated by the Legislature. Instead of immediately sending the reimbursements to the IFC, the division can hold to them until June 30, 2001.

The IFC - Assembly and Senate members who hand out money in between legislative sessions - also approved $1.3 million to complete the High Desert State Prison. But lawmakers said they were frustrated with cost overruns on the project and want a budget for the remaining expenses.

Legislators also approved $1.8 million for two months of operating both the High Desert prison and the Southern Nevada Correctional Center it's replacing.

IFC members also:

-Approved a $300,000 transfer from the southern Nevada veterans cemetery project to the southern Nevada veterans home project. But public works officials said that still might not be enough to finish the home the way it was promised.

The project already has been scaled down. The home was supposed to be 112,000 square feet, but was cut down to 88,000 square feet because of cost. Veterans affairs director Ray Alcorn said there's another $100,000 needed to finish the building's interior.

-Approved a $1 million expansion of one of the main state computers on which the state's over-budget NOMADS welfare program is run. The computer got a $2 million upgrade last month, but Terry Savage, director of the state Department of Information Technology, said additional funding was needed.

NOMADS was developed in response to a federal government order in the late 1980s calling for states to put in a central computer system for collecting child-support payments.

But the system has been plagued with delays and cost overruns. What started as a $24 million project has now escalated to $125 million.

Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, opposed the new funding, saying it's pointless to continue supporting the NOMADS system.