MARK WAITE / PVT Maureen Budahl remains state of Nevada community health nurse. Advertisement

Nye County will advertise for a county health officer to replace Maureen Budahl, whose resignation took effect Aug. 9. Budahl is still the state community health nurse.

Budahl's position as county health officer paid $600 per month, a salary set by commissioners. She served in that capacity in addition to her state job. The state will appoint a county health officer Jan. 1 if commissioners don't hire one before then.

Budahl said her job as county health officer included things like approving the transfer of a dead body out of the county; verifying a deceased person who was exhumed didn't die of a communicable disease; drawing up protocol for school immunization programs and other duties.

Budahl also serves as regional supervisor of the state bureau of communicable health in Churchill, Mineral, Nye and Esmeralda counties.

The Nye County Commission serves as the county board of health, but Budahl said the only time it convened in her 11 years as county health officer was during a West Nile virus outbreak in October 2005.

"The Nye County health officer gig was just impinging too much on my duties as a state employee," Budahl said. "It just became too difficult to do both jobs because there is constant conflict, and there were some things that occurred in the county where I should've been consulted and I wasn't."

Budahl said having her serve as county health officer led Nye County commissioners to neglect taking the position more seriously.

"It was time for the board of county commissioners to address health, welfare and safety of the citizens of Nye County in a true and meaningful way, and I was standing in the way of that because it was easy for them not to address that because they had me as a health officer," Budahl said.

The state's community health nurse provides services on a low-cost, sliding-fee scale based on income.

Nye County doesn't have a health department, leaving the job to the state.

"Places like Washoe, Clark and Carson City area have local health departments that do address their own communicable diseases but the rural areas don't. So the community health nurses sort of assume that role because you have to track down communicable diseases and you have to identify them and you have to make sure they don't become a huge, public health issue," Budahl said.

During a presentation Tuesday, Budahl addressed commissioners on behalf of the Nye County Child Death Review Committee. She urged commissioners to improve bicycle paths around Calvada Boulevard, by Pahrump Valley High School and J.G. Johnson Elementary School to prevent another fatality like occurred last spring involving a child on bicycle and a school bus. She said language requiring sidewalks and bike paths could be incorporated into development agreements. There are also funds available through grants for safe schools, though Nye County Road Supervisor Dave Fanning said the county applied too late for this years funding cycle.

"We all know Calvada (Boulevard), that road that goes through, there's no room for kids to even walk, let alone bike," Budahl said.