Before the Court en banc. Opinion by Justice Douglas.
In this appeal, the Court addresses whether NRS 439.365 provides counties the authority to modify a health district’s budget from the figure requested by the health district pursuant to NRS 439.365(1) and to allocate this modified amount, rather than the amount requested, for the support of the health district. On a petition for writ of mandamus and prohibition, the district court concluded that the statue was ambiguous and, based on the legislative history, NRS 439.365 required Clark County to approve Southern Nevada Health District’s (SNHD) budget at the amount requested up to the statutory maximum. On appeal, the Supreme Court agreed that, when read as a whole, the statute is ambiguous; thus the Court turned to the legislative history to determine the statute’s proper construction. The Court concluded that NRS 439.365 requires a county to adopt the budget submitted by a health district, without modification, so long as the amount requested does not exceed the statutory maximum. With regard to the remedy utilized by the district court, the Court found no abuse of discretion in its grant of a writ of mandamus, but concluded that prohibition relief was improperly granted, as Clark County’s participation in the budgeting process did not involve the exercise of judicial functions. Affirmed in part and reversed in part. (Anthony Carano, Associate in the Reno office of McDonald Carano Wilson.)
