Nevada Sens. Dean Heller and Catherine Cortez Masto joined this week to ask the Justice Department for more money to help cover overtime costs resulting from the Las Vegas shooting.
They made the request in a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying the $1 million grant announced last week will cover only a fraction of the accumulated costs of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, which they say has actually passed the $2 million mark.
In addition, the two pointed out costs for overtime by the Clark County Fire Department’s personnel are also mounting.
The two joined a bipartisan group of nine senators in asking the Veterans Administration to look for reasons why the suicide rate among western states veterans is 7 percent higher than in the rest of the country.
“The Vet Centers that offer mental health services to combat veterans are critical to ending veteran suicides,” they said in the letter, adding they appreciate the increased mental health services for female veterans, the expansion of the Veterans Crisis Line and other improvements but “there is still more work to be done and we want to work with you and all concerned stakeholders to do more to address this public health crisis.”