Nevada lawmakers discuss services for mentally retarded

Efforts to bring Nevada out of the national cellar in services for the mentally retarded produced emotional testimony during a legislative budget hearing Thursday.

Nevada ranks last in the country in per capita spending on such services. The average waiting time for the services is eight months, and only a tenth of the state's mentally retarded actually get them.

Provided with those details, as well as testimony from people getting or waiting for state services, members of the Legislature's joint finance subcommittee on human services launched into a wide-ranging discussion of the need to help the state's most vulnerable citizens.

"I have a feeling we're not reaching out to this population the way that we should be because we have such limited resources," Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said during the subcommittee hearing.

The budget for the state's Mental Health Developmental Services agency includes a 15 percent pay increase for service providers, but a recent study showed that Nevada was more than 30 percent below the national average in its pay scale.

Subcommittee members said they didn't like to continually hear that Nevada doesn't dedicate enough resources to meet the state's social needs.

"I'm tired of sitting in these meetings and finding that we're 51st in this, and 46th in that, and 49th in this," Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, said.

Giunchigliani added that lawmakers may be focused on taxes this session, but that shouldn't restrict discussion of state spending on human services.

"As we debate this whole issue of taxes, I'm going to say it again, if we're going to do anything let's move it so that we're not 50th in all these areas that deal with human services," Giunchigliani said.

"Why people pay taxes in the first place is to allow people to be able to live in dignity and be able to be contributing members of society, and we're not doing that in any of our program areas."

Toni Richard testified that her autistic, 2-year-old son has been on the state waiting list for services for eight months. She said the during such a critical time in his development, it's essential that services be available.

"If I can get services for him now, then he can become independent," Richard said.

Brian Lahren, who used to run Washoe ARC, formerly Washoe Association of Retarded Citizens, said funding is key to the debate on such services.

Lahren said WARC has a 100 percent turnover rate because of the low wages it's forced to pay and the type of the work involved. He said spreading out the tax burden and generating more revenue is essential if the state wants to take care of its citizens in need.

"We're one of the only industrialized countries in the world that does not take care of its frail elderly, indigent and its disabled population with anything that conforms with normal human standards of human dignity," Lahren said.

"We've got to find the courage to be able to fix this problem because we're not a humane society if we don't do it."

Sen. Raymond Rawson, R-Las Vegas, the budget subcommittee chairman, told Lahren his testimony was convincing and encouraged him to also testify at the lawmakers' tax committee meetings.