Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Budget cuts threaten construction of children’s psychiatric hospital

CARSON CITY — Mike Willden, director of the state Department of Health and Human Resources, feels he’s caught between a rock and a hard place over construction of a psychiatric hospital for children in Las Vegas.

Federal Medicaid regulations do not allow residential and acute care of mentally disturbed children in the same facility. That’s what is occurring at the Desert Willow Treatment Center.

Willden convinced the 2009 Legislature to build a separate $22 million, 36-bed psychiatric hospital for children.

If he doesn’t separate the treatments, the state stands to lose federal Medicaid reimbursement. Medicaid supplies 58 percent of the funds for treatment of eligible children. The state expects to get $4 million this fiscal year in Medicaid reimbursement.

But in view of the state’s budget problems, Willden has shelved the construction project.

The state budget office has told agencies to cut their budgets by 10 percent. Taking that into account, Willden said, he doesn’t want to build the facility and let it stand vacant for a lack of adequate staff.

But Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, called that “backward thinking.”

“It is not proper to assume that the Legislature is not going to staff the building six months in advance of a session,” he said.

Wilden said he hopes federal Medicaid officials will understand the financial bind the state is in and not cut back on funds if the new hospital is not constructed on the present schedule.

Willden has asked the state Public Works Board to finish the design but hold off on the construction.

The 2009 Legislature authorized $9.6 million in bonds for the project, and lawmakers authorized the federal government to kick in $13.1 million toward the construction.

No additional staff was allocated if the construction was completed in this biennium.

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