Tuesday, May 27, 2003 | 11:08 a.m.
Higher rents, about 50 new employees and a new shuttle bus service are among the additional expenses tied to the Department of Veterans Affairs' Southern Nevada branch's move from one central building near downtown Las Vegas to 10 temporary sites plus a federal hospital.
The VA has not figured out the exact price of the move, but the known costs show the moves from the Addeliar D. Guy III Ambulatory Care Center could add more than $6.1 million in expenses to the VA's budget this year, according to figures provided by VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System Director John Hempel.
The local VA is progressing well through the transfer, Hempel said, adding that in general they are about halfway done with the moving.
Four new locations, two clinics, a computer center and warehouse facility, are already open and all surgical services have been moved to the Mike O'Callaghan Federal Hospital. Another three clinics are expected to open within the next week or two. The rest of the temporary locations will be open before the VA completely moves out of Guy center building on Vegas Drive by the end of June, Hempel said.
Some veterans who have already seen their doctors moved out of the Guy center said that while the moves have caused confusion, they believe the local VA officials are doing all they can to help the situation.
"Moving makes the vets sad. You're going from one place to another and it gets confusing," Anchel Stolzberg, 81, a World War II Army veteran, said.
"But I can't see where they could do any more. They did all they could, these local folks," Stolzberg said while waiting at the new North Clinic in the Nucleus Business Plaza on Owens Avenue on Friday.
Don Faingold, 68, said the VA is making the best of a bad situation.
"It's difficult. The situation with the building wasn't their fault," Faingold, who was in the Navy from 1955 to 1957, said. "There's always confusion when you move. But now that I've been here once it won't be a problem again."
The VA is moving from the $16 million Guy clinic, which opened in 1997 and saw 35,400 patients last year. VA officials say the building has structural problems, although representatives for the building-owner Mooreland Corp., say those problems have been fixed.
Local VA services will probably be housed in the temporary sites for up to three years, or however long it takes it takes to build a new main clinic, officials said.
VA officials are reviewing proposals for new locations for a new main clinic. Budahn said the department is not saying where those sites are.
The latest search for a site comes after the VA and city of Las Vegas ended discussions over the possibility of building a new clinic on vacant city-owned property that was a former railroad yards.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is trying to keep the heat on the VA by building support in Congress -- specifically in the House Veterans Affairs Committee -- for the timely construction of a new "super clinic" in Las Vegas. Ultimately, Congress approves budgets for the department.
To that end Berkley urged two committee staffers to visit Las Vegas. The two congressional aides visited the Guy clinic and three of the outpatient field clinics last week. One of the aides said they returned to Washington committed to Berkley's view that a new clinic in needed -- soon.
"It's a great disappointment that this new (Guy) building is such a mess," said Susan Edgerton, Democratic staff director for the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee on health, noting that many of the nation's VA medical facilities are more than 50 years old.
Because of the moves to temporary locations, the VA in Las Vegas was given permission to hire an additional 80 full-time employees.
So far about 50 of those have been filled, but not all 80 will be, Hempel said.
The positions needed have been primarily clerical or pharmacist positions, plus some drivers for a new shuttle service, he said.
The new hires will cost about $2.5 million a year, Hempel estimated.
How long those 50 or so positions will exist or whether more employees will be needed is not known at this time, Hempel said.
The VA in Las Vegas currently has 901 employees, he said.
The shuttle bus service, which is ferrying patients between the new locations, will probably cost about $500,000 in the first year, Hempel said. He expected that cost to go down in later years.
Rents for the temporary locations will be about $4.2 million annually, compared with rent of $2.1 million at the Guy center, he said.
The VA also spent about $1 million to move equipment and supplies and reinstall equipment, such as telephones, not including staff overtime, Hempel said.
A total price tag on the moves should be available near the end of September, which is the end of the federal fiscal year, Hempel said.
"We're only spending as much as we need to," Hempel said. "But our first priority is to minimize the disruption to the patients, to make it as painless as it can be for them."
The VA hasn't decided whether to sue Moreland, which is based in Bakersfield, Calif., for the costs of the moves, VA spokesman Phil Budahn.
Moreland attorney Robert Symon said the VA's move is unnecessary because the problems at the Guy center have been fixed. He also said Moreland will sue when the VA moves out of the center.
The move is only because the VA needs more space, he said.
But Hempel said the VA disagrees and is following through with the moves.
A new main clinic would be about twice as big as the Guy center in order to provide care for the rising number of patients expected in the future. But for now, the local VA isn't moving into significantly larger facilities, he said.
The Guy clinic is about 175,000 square feet, while the combined size of the temporary locations are about 212,000 square feet.
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