Wednesday, July 7, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.
Clark County approved funding for the endangered WestCare Community Triage Center Tuesday, throwing a lifeline to the program that provides services to hundreds of alcoholics, drug addicts and mentally disturbed people every month.
However, the continued existence of the program, which diverts many such patients from already overburdened local jails and hospital emergency rooms, is far from settled.
Clark County Manager Thom Reilly warned that the failure of the state government to fully fund its expected allocation for the program, and the potential loss of funding from Henderson and other cities, could doom the program.
Reilly and officials with WestCare have warned that the impact of the triage center's closure could be severe on the area's health care centers and the Clark County Detention Center. In March, the last month for which the triage center has a complete summary, the center accepted 772 patients, including 188 patients from area hospitals and 202 transported by area police departments.
Reilly said he fears that the center may close.
"The impact it will have on emergency rooms is tremendous," he said. "What it does is jeopardize access to emergency rooms for everybody, because they will be clogged when you truly have an emergency. Every hospital is impacted."
The county provided $90,726 to keep the triage center open for another two months. The Las Vegas City Council is scheduled to discuss additional funding today; city officials have said they are likely to continue funding the program.
The Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City councils, however, may not be so forthcoming. Henderson's Bonnie Rinaldi, assistant city manager, said a primary issue is that the state has only paid about $450,000 of the $1.27 million originally expected.
Henderson also has concerns about the share of the budget burden it takes on and about "mission creep," or the growing role of the triage center's program in handling mental health issues, Rinaldi said.
The county and cities will meet Thursday in the Regional Planning Coalition's technical committee, which brings together the managers of the local governments. The planning coalition's full board could decide the triage center's fate July 22.
Reilly told the County Commission that the critical issue is the lack of state funding. He said any pressure that commissioners could put on the Legislative Interim Finance Committee to free up funds -- a move also supported by Gov. Kenny Guinn -- would be welcome.
Commissioners echoed his sentiments. Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald noted that mental health treatment is historically a state issue.
"We've given more than half a million (dollars) to address an issue that truly is a mandate of the state," she said.
The county's University Medical Center and county-funded detention center would be disproportionately impacted if the WestCare triage center closed, according to county officials.
"It impacts Clark County in multiple ways when we do not have these facilities," Boggs McDonald said.
Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, said the Interim Finance Committee cannot fund the program at the hoped-for levels.
"It would fly in the face of what 63 people in the Legislature did" last summer, she said.
Giunchigliani did agree that the bill to fund the triage center did not come before the Assembly of the full Legislature during the regular, if tumultuous, budget process.
"It died, and we didn't even know it was an issue," she said.
Despite the governor's request six months ago to support redirection of funds for the program, "We could not do it," Giunchigliani said. "Policy-wise, you can't have killed a bill and then have a small group of legislators overrule that decision."
Reilly disagreed.
"The Interim Finance Committee reappropriates money all the time," he said. "The issue is, if there is a will, there's a way."
Rinaldi said the lack of state funding was one issue for Henderson, which last year provided $170,000 last year, but not the only issue. She said the triage center is taking in more and more patients that could go to state-funded mental health programs.
Henderson is providing 14 percent of the program's $3.81 million budget, but only about 8 percent of the center's patients are from the city, she said. Still, the city has not made a firm decision whether or not to fund the program, or fund it at a reduced level.
"We haven't come to any conclusion yet," Rinaldi said. "We have these concerns."
Peter Ventrella, WestCare's chief financial officer, said the future of the triage center is unclear. The center has been operating without the full state funding for a year, and the center has cut staff and services in response.
"The center can operate at its current level, if other (funding) levels stay in place," he said.
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