County manager outlines priorities: seniors, behavioral health, supportive housing, dispatch regionalization and broadband funding

County Manager Brown provided a quarterly organizational report to the Verdi forum, summarizing Washoe County accomplishments and the commission’s priorities for the coming year: seniors, mental health and infrastructure.

Brown said the county is pursuing several initiatives that follow those priorities, including senior-center upgrades, a behavioral-health strategy and infrastructure projects. “What I'm gonna show you tonight is, what the what the current priorities have been established,” Brown said, describing a rolling strategic planning process staff conducts annually with commissioners.

The nut graf: Brown framed the year's work as continuing existing priorities while moving toward system upgrades—particularly behavioral health capacity, supportive housing adjacent to the Cares Campus, and a regional dispatch system—backed by a strong audited financial position.

On vulnerable populations, Brown said Washoe County completed construction of the Cares Campus shelter and obtained $20 million in state funding to build a 50-unit supportive-housing complex adjacent to that campus for households earning 0–80% of area median income and who may need case management and behavioral-health services. He described supportive housing as combining housing with therapy and case workers to help residents stabilize and transition to permanent housing.

Brown said the county hired a behavioral health administrator, Julia Reddy, and approved an action plan to help stand up the Washoe Behavioral Health Center at the former West Hills Hospital. The center will provide services for youth and subacute adults who need behavioral-health care and case management, Brown said.

On systems and transparency, Brown said the county will implement an OpenCheckbook transparency tool in July (vendor name OpenCheckbook) and has completed a transition to a new voter-registration platform called Know Inc; Andrew McDonald was named registrar of voters. He also described an on-schedule, on-budget regional computer-aided dispatch implementation set for completion in September that will allow Reno, Sparks and Truckee Meadows dispatch centers to share resources.

Broadband: Brown announced that Nevada received Northern Nevada funding of about $48 million from a broadband equity program; he said multiple providers, including AT&T, a local Sky Fiber and Amazon, are on the list of recipients and the funds have a multiyear construction deadline.

On financial position, Brown said the county maintains a structurally balanced budget, a strong bond rating, clean audit results, and multi-year labor agreements negotiated for four years to provide stability.

Question-and-answer highlights included community concerns about vacant HOA-owned parcels that pose fire risk in Mogul and other areas; Brown said fire code enforcement and property-owner responsibility are part of the follow-up and said staff would coordinate with fire bureau leadership to investigate. Commissioners also raised evacuation-plan updates and FEMA floodplain mapping as near-term priorities.

Ending: Brown closed by reiterating that the county will continue to refine the behavioral-health action plan and infrastructure projects and will return to report progress in future meetings.