A day after another child died in county protective custody, Clark County officials said they remain legally barred from disclosing details about the case but said they will advocate for state law changes that would unmuzzle them.

Tom Morton, director of the county Department of Family Services, urged County Commissioners on Wednesday to support the loosening of state privacy rules that he said restricts him and other county officials from disclosing much about deaths and near fatalities of kids in the child welfare system.

"We have very extreme limitations on what we can share with the community," Morton said. "It places us in a difficult situation when we cannot be open."

Other child welfare advocates disagree with the county's interpretation of state law, saying county officials could release more information but choose not to.

"Currently, state law allows them to release some information. Despite that, they're not releasing it," said Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, a member of the legislative subcommittee studying the health and welfare of children in public custody.

According to state law, child welfare agencies "may" release basic information about children who died or nearly died because of abuse, neglect or other maltreatment.

The county has withheld information in recent cases, saying police have not yet concluded that the deaths of children in the county welfare system were caused by maltreatment.

"Any excuse they can find, they use it to shield the records from the public," Buckley said. "They need to release enough information for a normal person to understand what happened to an abused, or neglected child. Instead, they release cursory information."

Buckley said in recent cases when it has been clear a child died because of abuse, county officials "say it hasn't been officially declared abuse, so they don't have to release the information."

Four children who have had contact with the system or been in county custody have died since Aug. 4, including a 15-month-old boy who died Monday after he stopped breathing at Child Haven, the county's home for abused, neglected and abandoned children.

In each case, the county has released scant information about the cases, citing state law restrictions.

Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald said after Morton's comments Wednesday that she wants to go a step further than informally lobbying legislators to change the law.

She asked county staff to prepare a resolution through which the commissioners would formally call on the Legislature to amend state law to allow for more public disclosure.

"The public has a right to know, the public wants to know," Boggs McDonald said.

The resolution will be considered by commissioners at their Sept. 19 meeting, but interviews with other commissioners indicate the resolution is poised for unanimous passage.

"More light shed on this will serve the families in the system and the public," Commission Chairman Rory Reid said.

He added that being forced to remain tight-lipped about the cases puts officials in a bad spot when a child fatality or serious injury was not the result of county negligence.

"It put us in a position where we can't defend ourselves," he said.

Currently, state officials are preparing legislation for submission to the 2007 Legislature that seeks to close loopholes, strengthen language and increase public reporting in cases where abused, neglected or otherwise maltreated children die or nearly die.

The Nevada Department of Health and Human Services and the subcommittee Buckley sits on have prepared bill draft requests with similar provisions amending what should be made public in such cases.

Health and Human Services Director Mike Willden said Wednesday that in his agency's latest draft, child welfare agencies would be required to release much more information than the details they many now discretionarily disclose.

If passed, it would mandate that in fatal or near fatal cases of abuse or neglect, child welfare agencies must publicly disclose:

• the child's age, cause and manner of death and location at time of death

• whether a death investigation is underway

• if the child was ever involved in the welfare system, and if so, a summary of services provided by the agency in the preceding five years

• and a description of the evidence related to the fatality.

Willden and Buckley said they are confident the proposed reform legislation will be approved next year.

"The governor has clearly indicated he wants a bill moved forward on this," Willden said.