Editorial: ‘Lost’ bill costs county

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 | 9 a.m.

As bills were rushed pell-mell in the final 29 nonstop hours of the 2005 Legislature, the one authorizing an extra $1.4 million over the next two years for the Spring Mountain Youth Camp went nowhere. No one noticed until it was too late that it hadn't been included in any of the final votes. Now the camp, a Clark County correctional facility for male youths near Mount Charleston, is without expected funds for urgently needed counseling services. The oversight is a blow to county officials, including Juvenile Judge William Voy, who has some leverage against the state and who says he will use it if the money isn't forthcoming.

At any given time there are about 100 youths at the county camp. Consistently among that number are about 70 eligible for placement in either of the state's juvenile facilities in Elko and Caliente. Those facilities, however, are at full capacity. Without the county-operated camp, the state would be faced with spending millions for additional space. The camp's budget is $3 million a year, of which the state regularly pays only $342,000. Voy says if the state doesn't find a way to provide the extra $1.4 million for 2005 through 2007, he could, if it came to that, start sentencing youthful offenders to the state facilities, rather than to the county camp.

The bill authorizing the $1.4 million was passed by the Senate. Clark County's lobbyist, Dan Musgrove, thought it would pass the Assembly too, particularly as juvenile facilities in other counties had been approved for extra funding over the next two years. "Perhaps with all that was happening, I wasn't putting enough of a bug in people's ears about it to make sure it stayed on the list," Musgrove said.

As we see it, failure to pass this bill was an oversight and the funding should be quickly forthcoming from the Interim Finance Committee, which handles appropriations between sessions of the Legislature. But these kinds of oversights will continue to happen, as they have in the past, until the Legislature reforms its approach to time management. Leaving dozens of bills until the final hours, session after session, is an irresponsible and thoughtless way to govern Nevada.