Las Vegas Sun

February 12, 2012

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Gibbons’ budget hits Clark County social services

Monday, Feb. 16, 2009 | 12:49 p.m.

Thomas Morton, director of the Clark County Department of Family Services, told a legislative budget subcommittee Monday that he cannot implement Gov. Jim Gibbons’ proposed 6 percent pay cut.

Without layoffs, Morton said he would have to keep vacant 32 to 49 positions to achieve the proposed $2.4 million reduction in the state’s allocation to Clark County to run the department. That would mean putting more administrative duties on case workers and giving them less time to spend with clients, he said.

The state supplies money to the county for welfare services, which includes foster care licensing, adoption and family services.

The Senate Finance and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee heard a number of pleas to maintain social services budgets.

Gard Jameson of the Children Advance Alliance of Southern Nevada, urged the committee to continue funding state services to maintain a federal match.

Peter Ediger of Family Promise told lawmakers they must make an effort to keep families intact “in these economic troubled times.”

And Tom Waite of Boys Town of Nevada said with the economy performing poorly the stress on families becomes worse.

Committee members also were concerned about a planned reduction in block grants to local governments to help children get counseling and keep them out of the state’s juvenile detention facilities.

The budget of the governor cuts 88 beds from the state’s juvenile detention centers in Las Vegas, Caliente and Elko. There’s been a 16 percent decline in commitments to these centers.

Diane Comeaux, director of the state Division of Child and Family Service, told the committees she asked for an increase of $490,000 a year to help keep these children in their communities and provide such things as substance abuse programs.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said it was “very disturbing” that the governor’s budget cuts the grants to counties by $40,000 and yet he is also decreasing the beds in the reformatories. Leslie said the grants help keep children in communities for treatment, rather than sending them to the correction centers.

Comeaux, in her budget request, asked to increase the grants to counties to more than $1 million a year but the governor put in $609,291 in each of the coming two fiscal years. In the 2007-2008 fiscal year, the grant amount to the counties was also $609,291.

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