LOOKING IN ON: CLARK COUNTY

Sunday, July 1, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

In a cost-cutting move, University Medical Center administrators will ask Clark County commissioners Tuesday to shut down the McCarran Quick Care Center.

The center is a money loser for the fi nancially strapped public hospital and it has been on top of a list of possible service cuts since April. Closing down the center would result in annual savings of about $1.7 million, UMC offi - cials have said.

A decision on the facility was expected at the end of its lease at McCarran International Airport in October.

Instead, hospital administrators want it shut down immediately because of the realignment of Russell Road. The center had fronted Russell, a major thoroughfare near the airport, but airport expansion forced the realignment. Russell now runs two blocks west of the center, requiring patients to navigate several side streets and access roads to get to the facility.

The McCarran center had been seeing 50 to 70 patients a day until the Russell Road closure. During the fi rst two days under those circumstances, the center saw 35 and 29 patients .

The center provides primary and urgent care, and is one of 11 quick care facilities that UMC operates. If McCarran patients want to continue using a UMC center, the nearest is at Boulder Highway and Tropicana Avenue, about six miles north.

UMC spokeswoman Cheryl Persinger said UMC administrators weren't sure if the closure would mean lay offs. "I don't know that answer," she said. "We will obviously do everything we can not to."

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The director of the county's social service department, Patricia Pate, resigned abruptly Thursday.

County offi cials would not say why, calling it a private matter.

Pate had directed the 188-employee department since January 2006, when then-County Manager Thom Reilly appointed her to the post after a national search.

County Manager Virginia Valentine has appointed Nancy McLane as interim director of the department, which boasts an operating budget of $87.8 million and is responsible for disbursing many federal and state grants to outside agencies.

McLane is a 25-year employee of the county and served as assistant director of social service from 2000 to 2005. Most recently she was assistant director of the county's family services department.

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Commissioner Tom Collins will try once again to garner support for a proposal that would require any new Clark County workers to live within county limits.

Collins has said the proposal would increase tax revenue for the county, which now has 100 to 140 employees living outside its borders.

But other commissioners hesitated to support the proposal two weeks ago, citing concerns that the residency requirement might deprive the county of the most qualifi ed employees.

Collins will propose an amended version of the proposal Tuesday. It would allow the county manager to request a waiver of the residency requirement from commissioners and would require the law to be reviewed by commissioners and reenacted every year.