Senator’s office helps secure vital tax credit for S. Nevada mental health provider
David Robeck is president and CEO of Bridge Counseling Associates, which was on the brink of closing its busiest location earlier this year due to lingering financial shortcomings related to the coronavirus pandemic. His nonprofit, the largest mental health provider in Southern Nevada, received help from U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-nev., in breaking through bureaucratic red tape to receive a much-needed $1.1 million federal tax credit.
The CEO of Southern Nevada’s oldest and largest mental health provider is crediting the office of U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-nev., with helping cut through bureaucratic red tape to land a $1.1 million federal tax credit that provided a lifeline.
Las Vegas-based Bridge Counseling Associates was on the brink of closing its busiest location earlier this year due to lingering financial shortcomings related to the coronavirus pandemic, CEO David Robeck said. Pandemicmandated closures that began in March 2020 caused Bridge to cease in-person therapy and group sessions, which are utilized by most of its nearly 4,000 clients, Robeck said. With only telehealth appointments bringing in revenue, Bridge continued to pay its 80 employees despite the dip in revenue. By May 2022, it needed more than $1 million to keep paying its staff.
“We were the last to close and (though) we did provide telehealth, we were only closed to clients,” Robeck said. “All of the staff came into work and, in fact, we continued to hire because there was not only a need, but it was greater because all you heard on TV and on radio anywhere was how horrible COVID was.”
In June, Bridge was finally granted a $1.1 million Employee Retention Credit (ERC) by the IRS to cover wages paid between March 13, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2021, after initially applying for the program in May 2022.
It came just as Robeck mulled closing the group’s 1640 Alta Drive location near downtown Las Vegas, less than a mile from the Las Vegas Medical District and within proximity of the valley’s most at-risk residents.
That would have left just its other location in east Las Vegas, at 4221 Mcleod Drive.
Robeck, who before being named CEO in 2014 spent 25 years in commercial banking, was relieved to have finally gotten the funding, and he said it would not have been possible without help from Cortez Masto.
“It wasn’t something we could sit on for long,” Robeck said, adding that a third-party firm that initially helped the counseling group apply for the credit estimated they should have been approved for the credit by “no later” than October 2022.
“The tax credit came at a good time, but I will tell you: We worked very hard to make sure we were doing everything right so that we can get paid,” Robeck continued.
The IRS told Robeck in June 2022 that Bridge’s application was still under
“The tax credit came at a good time, but I will tell you: We worked very hard to make sure we were doing everything right so that we can get paid.”
David Robeck, CEO, Bridge Counseling Associates