Editorial: No finessing of grant funds

Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

Even though it will cost Nevada a significant amount of money, we agree with a federal agency's ruling that standard state poison-control contracts should not be funded with grant money intended for use in preparing against a bioterrorism attack.

The Health Resources and Service Administration, however, should have made this ruling in 2004, when the Nevada State Health District first received a share of a national bioterrorism preparedness grant.

In 2004 and 2005, the federal administration, part of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, allowed Nevada to use a portion of the grant funds to pay for day-to-day contractual costs of poison-control programs operated by the Washoe Medical Center and the Southern Nevada Health District.

But after the Las Vegas Sun raised questions in July, the federal administration ruled that poison-control programs were an essential state service and therefore ineligible for funding through the special federal bioterrorism grant.

For the Southern Nevada Health District, this meant a sudden $500,000 hole in its budget. Obviously, this left the district in a major bind, as it was led to believe the critical poison-control program was a legitimate use of the federal funds.

Dr. Bradford Lee, Nevada's health officer, told the Sun in July, "There's some surveillance stuff you can do with the poison-control centers that also kind of highlights some abnormalities that may be the first indication of a disease outbreak in an area."

The state's rationale was that a disease outbreak could be an indicator of bioterrorism, and the federal administration did not challenge it until a Sun reporter raised questions.

The poison-control program, featuring a hot line to out-of-state experts who can provide information about substances that people have ingested or otherwise come into contact with, has been a local expense since its founding in the mid-1980s.

We believe it is important that the way the program should be funded has now been clarified.

Had an audit someday found that Nevada was misapplying federal funds, it could have jeopardized future state applications for terrorism-related grants.

On Tuesday the Legislative Interim Finance Committee, which handles state business in between biennial sessions of the Legislature, authorized an emergency appropriation of $227,500. This amount will fund the poison-control program until the Legislature meets in February.

We hope Nevada has learned from this experience.

Federal money granted to the state for terrorism-related purposes should not be substituted to fund long-standing local programs, even if immediate objections are not raised by the federal agency involved.