Our Opinion: Not much time for counties to fill in for state

The Legislature took four months to decide what programs the counties would have to take over from the state.

The counties had four weeks to figure out what they were going to have to take over and how much it would cost them.

On Friday, Nevada's state budget takes effect, and the counties must be ready to take over those things the state dropped.

Among the things the Legislature shifted to the counties was $14.5 million in institutional care, the cost for consumer health protection, the responsibility for screening and treatment of tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases, requiring the counties to pay for youth parole activities, and child protective services among others.

That list doesn't include the 2.5-cent property tax for the county indigent accident funds that the Legislature just took to help balance the budget, or the 70 percent for the production of pre-sentence reports used by state courts the county must now pay.

Nevada's rural counties still are trying to work out where they're going to find the money for all these things, and the clock is ticking.

State officials say it will be six months before all the contracts are worked out to allow the counties to even start providing some of these services.

In the meantime, the state has placed Nevada's rural counties in the unenviable position of having to tell their most vulnerable residents they can't help them until they figure out how.ױ