Lawmakers fear deficit will rock veterans home

Friday, Feb. 23, 2001 | 11:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The veterans home in Boulder City, plagued with a variety of problems during construction, may face a deficit during its first two years of operation, state lawmakers said today.

Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, chairman of a Senate-Assembly budget subcommittee, told veterans officials that the legislative staff estimates the home will be $1.4 million short. "I worry we are going to shortchange the veterans in the veterans home," he said.

He said he is predicting the state Veterans Service Office would have to appear before the Interim Finance Committee in December or January to be bailed out.

The problem is that officials have double-counted some revenue, O'Donnell said. The home, expected to be opened in July, budgeted federal money and Medicaid. O'Donnell and his staff said they won't be funded by both.

However, veteran officials said they were sure they had budgeted correctly.

Legislators were also upset at the reduction in the 180-bed home's size. It started out at 115,500 square feet home, but has been cut to 82,000 square feet with the same number of beds.

Assemblywoman Vonne Chowning, D-North Las Vegas, said she was disappointed that there will be only one bathroom per four patients.

"These aren't patients in the spring of life," she said. "I don't know what we can do about it."

As initially designed, there would be two patients in a room with a bathroom. As it stands now there will still be two patients in a room, with a bathroom for each two-room suite.

Charles W. "Chuck" Fulkerson, veteran service officers, said the limited budget dictated that there be less bathrooms. "It was not anybody's arbitrary decision." He said he was not in his present position when the decision was made.

O'Donnell said that means there will be one sink, one shower, one medicine cabinet and one toilet shared by four people.

The Las Vegas lawmaker wondered whether it would have been better to allow private industry to build and operate such a home. But Fulkerson said that the first thing that suffers in privatization of these facilities is the quality of care.

And the home could face additional problems in hiring nursing staff. Veterans officials said there is a shortage of 500 nurses in Southern Nevada. If it can't hire the staff, it will have to limit the number of individuals being admitted.