Babies, parents crowd hearing on Nevada human services

Chloe is only 10 days old, but she's already been to school -- and made her first trip to the Nevada Legislature on Tuesday.

Chloe tags along when her parents learn baby health and safety basics several days a week at state-funded classes in northern Nevada. She sat before lawmakers Tuesday, wrapped in a red jumper and matching socks, as her father praised the baby centers.

"They're a huge support," said Kirk Goddard, 37, who completed a three-week "daddy boot camp" at an Incline Village baby center last month.

Goddard and a half-dozen parents crowded a hearing room with strollers and blankets to endorse Family To Family Connection. They asked lawmakers reviewing part of the Human Resources Department budget proposal to maintain funding for the program.

The two-year budget proposal includes a request for $17.1 million in state funds for Family To Family, separate Family Resource Centers and Senior Rx, which provides low-cost prescription drugs to needy elderly.

Lawmakers praised money-saving efforts by Human Resources chief Mike Willden in the family services programs, but worried about Senior Rx costs.

Willden is merging the budgets of the two family programs to save $300,000 a year. He's also planning to combine six of the 18 baby centers with Family Resource Centers.

That plan is being contested by Goddard and other parents who say the centers have different missions.

The baby centers help parents learn proper methods of dealing with newborns and target children up to one year of age. They were created by the 1997 Legislature at the urging of then-Gov. Bob Miller, and are run on $1.6 million a year in state funds.

The family resource centers assist families with older children and primarily are funded by grants. They're only partly funded by the state.

Willden said his plan would give centers the choice of whether to merge, and lawmakers seemed pleased with the money-saving move.

Legislators were more concerned with the Senior Rx program, a favorite of Gov. Kenny Guinn. Guinn wants the state to spend $5 million more over the next two years to serve more needy elderly.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, wondered about rising insurance premiums paid by the state through the program. The department will renegotiate premiums in the summer.

The Human Resources agency -- the state's largest -- was scheduled to further explain the Senior Rx program to a Senate committee today.