FAYETTEVILLE -- Legislators pledged Thursday to search "nooks and crannies" to find money for a veterans' nursing home in Fayetteville even if the state's tobacco settlement money can't be used for it.

Dr. Fay Boozman, director of the Arkansas Department of Health, said in a letter dated Feb. 7 that he doesn't think tobacco settlement money earmarked to keep people off cigarettes can be used to establish a veterans' home. Members of the House Aging and Legislative Affairs and Senate Children and Youth committees had said last month they would like to tap the settlement to pay for the project. At a meeting at the VA Medical Center in Fayetteville, legislators said they'll make the home a priority after failing to find funds for it last year.

"There ought to be a broad-based effort to get it here," state Rep. Jay Bradford, D-White Hall, said.

Washington Regional Medical Center will move to a new location in August, and officials of the Department of Veterans Affairs have been working since 1999 to find money to renovate two floors of the old hospital into a 108-bed, skilled nursing home for veterans. It would be the second veterans' nursing home in Arkansas -- there's one in Little Rock -- but the first to offer the higher level of skilled nursing care.

The federal government awarded a $4. 5 million grant for the project in 2000, but the grant expired because the state never came up with its $2. 4 million matching money. Legislators said Thursday that they will make finding the state's matching funds a top priority going into the 2003 legislative session.

The committee decided to ask legislative staff as well as Gov. Mike Huckabee's staff to present options for funding the state's share of the grant at its next meeting, March 21.

Jim Miller, deputy director of the state Department of Veterans Affairs, said money to pay for veterans' care at the home would come from varying sources in the federal government, often replacing state Medicaid funding for the same veterans' health care.

State Rep. Jo Carson, D-Fort Smith, pointed out that the state would see an overall savings, perhaps even making up its $2. 4 million share in just two years. That's because Arkansas no longer would pay $1,700 a month for Medicaid for many of the nursing home's patients. If just 50 of the veterans who stay there are on Medicaid now, the state would save $85,000 a month, or more than $1 million a year, she said.

Rep. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette, said the state stands to save $1 million a year every year after the center opens. "If I could get an investment like that, I'd make it," Hendren said. "It sounds like it's a good deal financially."

Sen. Jack Critcher, D-Grubbs, asked why the home wasn't more of a priority for the Northwest Arkansas delegation in 2001. Rep. Jan Judy, D-Fayetteville, said it's not always for a Northwest Arkansas legislator to ask for such funding. Carson also said new legislators didn't know the importance of the project because they weren't around in 1999 when the issue first came up. She blamed term limits, which limit representatives to three two-year terms and senators to two four-year terms.

"I can't underscore how badly I'd like to see term limits overturned, because it would give us the chance to finish what we start," she said.

    Bradford said legislators can sell the veterans' home idea in 2003 by talking up its economic benefits, the possibility of saving Medicaid dollars and the fact that it would serve a needy and deserving population. Plus, the deal could be couched in such a way that the state money won't be spent if the federal funds aren't granted again, he said.