Regional governments to meet over funding of triage center

Friday, July 9, 2004 | 11:08 a.m.

The WestCare Community Triage Center, which received a two-month reprieve from closure this week with funding commitments from Clark County and Las Vegas, is not out of the fiscal woods, the nonprofit agency's president warned Thursday.

In response, regional governments pledged to meet this month to hammer out a funding formula for the center.

Richard Steinberg, WestCare president and chief executive, told a meeting of city managers and the Clark County manager that further erosion of funding could jeopardize the program, which diverts alcoholics, drug addicts and mentally ill people from local jails and hospital emergency rooms.

"At some point, we cannot do the project," Steinberg said. He noted that although local governments and hospitals have covered two-thirds of the funding for the center, the state government's refusal to pay its expected portion of the funding -- about $680,000 for the last year -- has already forced service cutbacks at the triage center.

"There's just not much left to tweak," he said. "It's a matter of who's going to pay the freight on it at this point."

A primary question left unanswered during the regular meeting of the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition technical committee is Henderson's commitment to the program. In the past year the city has given $170,000 to the program, but Henderson representatives argue that they may be overassessed for a program that mostly treats people in the central urban area.

Mark Calhoun, Henderson assistant city manager, said the formula for funding the program needs another look.

"We're concerned about the funding mechanism," he said, but added that Henderson remains committed to the triage center. Calhoun noted that the program frees up beds throughout the community's hospitals, including those in Henderson.

Calhoun said he did not know if the Henderson City Council would support stopgap funding for the next two months or what level of funding commitment the city would support for the next year.

Steinberg noted that the funding issues for the triage center do not threaten other WestCare programs, such as their mental health services for adolescents.

Steinberg and representatives from the Metropolitan Police Department, Clark County and the Las Vegas spoke for the program, which takes in about 750 people a month. Those people otherwise would go to already overburdened jails and emergency rooms, particularly at University Medical Center.

Clark County Manager Thom Reilly said most patients who go into UMC's emergency room are there for a few hours, but taking a mentally ill person off the street can fill up a sometimes critically needed bed for days.

This week Clark County pledged $91,000 and Las Vegas $72,000 to keep the triage center open through the end of August. However, there is no plan to fund the program through June 2005, by which point local leaders hope to have funding from the state government.

Reilly and other local government representatives noted that by state law, the state government is responsible for mental health treatment.

However, legislators last summer failed to pass funding for the Las Vegas center. Members of the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee have said they cannot fund a program that was not supported during the regular session.

Reilly called for a united "full-court press" to at least secure state funding for the program next year.

Steinberg said one of the ironies of the funding problem for the triage center is that is has become a model for other communities dealing with issues of chronic inebriates and the mentally ill. A group from San Francisco recently came to Las Vegas to look at the program, he said.

"It's becoming a national model," he said. "That's the scary part. It's working."

The working group to find a funding formula should return before the meeting of the full Regional Planning Commission on July 26. The center at 930 N. Fourth St. opened in January 2003.