Nevada lawmakers question who should run juvenile center

Gov. Kenny Guinn's budget includes funding for 84 state employees to staff a Las Vegas-area juvenile detention center, but lawmakers say a private operator might be better.

The 96-bed Summit View juvenile detention center has been closed for more than a year while the state looked for a private contractor to run the facility, which was designed to house the state's most violent juvenile offenders.

Guinn's proposal, however, makes the prison a state-run institution, at a cost of $141 per day per inmate. The state previously paid Correctional Services Corp. $122 per day to operate the facility, but the company pulled out of the contract in 2000.

The state put out a request for proposal last March to operate Summit View, but withdrew the proposal in August because of "the state's economic conditions and the uncertainties regarding the budget of the Division of Child and Family Services," according to a departmental budget report.

The division believes the state can operate the facility for less money than private companies.

State Human Resources Director Mike Willden told a legislative budget subcommittee Thursday that the low bid he received for the work was $149 per day. He said the state withdrew the proposal before it could negotiate for a better price.

Many legislators were skeptical about bringing Summit View under state control, and second-guessed Willden's financial details.

Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, said Nevada-based Rite of Passage would run the facility for $121 per day and is very interested in operating the facility.

Other legislators felt the division simply wanted to make the prison state-run.

"If there's something that I don't know about, then someone come and talk to me about it so I know why there's this driving force to do this as a state facility," Sen. Raymond Rawson, R-Las Vegas, said.

Edward Cotton, administrator for the Department of Children and Family Services, said he had no hidden agenda, but making the prison state-operated would be beneficial to service.

"I think that this would give us a great opportunity to build a state-of-the-art program. I think it's location near Las Vegas allows a lot more services to be brought in," Cotton said.

Senate Majority Leader William Raggio, R-Reno, said it bothered him this issue was even on the table after the Legislative Interim Finance Committee rejected the governor's previous proposal for the state to run Summit View.

"What's concerning me is that we denied the executive request to open this again as a state facility," Raggio said. "And we were concerned about the relative cost per day."

Problems at the facility while operated by Correctional Services were well documented.

Twenty inmates climbed onto a Summit View rooftop in June 2001 and held police at bay for hours.

More problems surfaced after two female guards were convicted and sentenced to probation for having sex with teens they were supervising.

Correctional Services decided to walk away after saying it could not operate the facility profitably.

After shuttering the facility, the department paroled about half of the inmates. Others were sent to facilities in Texas and Tennessee and to Rite of Passage in Nevada.