Triage center, short on funds, to stay open for two months

Wednesday, June 30, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

The WestCare Board of Directors today unanimously approved keeping the Community Triage Center open for an additional two months to give local government entities time to determine whether they will remain committed to funding the project.

The center at 930 N. Fourth St. opened in January 2003 and relieves overcrowding of local hospital emergency rooms by taking chronically intoxicated people and the mentally ill.

Richard Steinberg, president and chief executive of WestCare, a nonprofit organization, said this morning that the prospect of closing the center "is a terrible situation we find ourselves in because we are just a provider, but now we are taking on the role of getting all of the parties to the table."

"We already have made cutbacks, but we want to stay open because this is such an important service," Steinberg said.

The 56-bed facility had planned to close at midnight today because of a nearly $677,000 shortfall in state funding and because Clark County and local municipalities have not signed interlocal agreements for the new fiscal year that begins Thursday. The Las Vegas City Council and the Clark County Commission are expected to discuss the matter at meetings next week.

The $3.81 million operations budget for the center has been funded by $1.27 million from Clark County and local municipalities, $1.27 million from area hospitals and $1.27 million from the state.

The state has provided only about half of its share, mostly in federal funds from the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Abuse that are funneled through the state. The state failed to fund the rest through an appropriations bill before the 2003 Legislature and later before the Interim Finance Committee.

WestCare officials announced last week that they would close the facility because they feared that the local municipal entities would pull their shares in wake of the state's shortfall.

In the wake of the decision to close the facility that is expected to treat about 9,000 people this year, Clark County, which funds $544,000 of the local municipalities' share, and the City of Las Vegas, which funds $434,000, gave verbal commitments to WestCare to continue funding the project.

However, the cities of Henderson, which is expected to contribute $170,000, North Las Vegas, which is expected to provide $110,000, and Boulder City, which is slated to kick in $13,000, have not committed their funding shares, officials said.

The Clark County Commission is set to address the issue of temporarily funding the triage center for two months at its Tuesday meeting, the Las Vegas City Council is to discuss the same topic at its Wednesday meeting.

"This is good news because this service is desperately needed," County Manager Thom Reilly said of the WestCare board's decision. "I still believe the state needs to fund this, and the county is not going to let the state off the hook. It needs to live up to the agreement and fund its share."

Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell said today that the board's decision was made "as a good faith gesture" based on the city and county's decision to keep their shares of the funding coming in for at least two months while a new interlocal funding agreement is worked out with the other entities.

"We would not be making this commitment if we did not feel we could" retain the other entities for a longer agreement, she said. "I believe there will be a strong push before the 2005 Legislature to get the state to fund its share because this facility is needed."

The Southern Nevada Regional Planning coalition, which includes the local municipalities, plans to discuss the matter at its July 22 meeting.

"I really think that once all of the entities understand the importance of the CTC, they will show up and do the right thing," said WestCare board member Robert "Bobby G" Gronauer, who is also Las Vegas Constable and head of the Las Vegas Housing Authority.

"Without a facility like this, that treats so many people, we'll have even bigger problems similar to those of the 1970s when people were dying on the streets," Gronauer said. "The entire community will suffer."

This morning Marilyn Moran, on her first day as a WestCare board member, said she wanted "to see everyone step up to the plate on this. ... If they (government entitities) have any doubts I would suggest they go to the triage center and take a look at the good that is being done."

The project has saved taxpayers more than $11 million, based on what it would cost to treat drunks and the mentally ill elsewhere, WestCare officials have estimated.

In the past week records have been broken at least twice with more than 80 uninsured psychiatric patients waiting in local hospital emergency rooms for beds to become available in the crowded state mental health system, Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services officials have said.

The number of patients crowding emergency rooms would have been even larger, however, if the triage center had not been helping to alleviate that congestion.

The center sees about 750 patients per month who are suffering from mental health or substance abuse crises. About 7,200 who are expected to use the facility this year are homeless or otherwise indigent, WestCare said.

Last fall WestCare officials cut back about a third of the triage center's original staff of 60 and reduced the number of ambulances it uses from three to one in the wake of the state not fully funding the project.