Legislature pace slow

Monday, Feb. 10, 1997 | 6:01 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The pace of the Legislature is lagging behind the 1995 session, which lasted a record 169 days.

After three weeks, the number of bills introduced in both houses is trailing the figure of two years ago. So far, only two bills have been passed and signed, including one allocating $10 million to pay for the cost of the session.

But Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, said lawmakers "are picking up steam every day."

The three-week point in 1995 signaled a two-week recess to allow the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee to hold full-day sessions on Gov. Bob Miller's budget. Meanwhile, the other major committees headed for Las Vegas for two weeks of hearings on bills.

This session, the two-week recess has been scrapped in favor of a new schedule where the Senate and Assembly hold floor sessions only three days a week, to allow the major committees to work longer in the mornings.

"This schedule hurts us because there are no bill introductions on Tuesday and Friday," Dini said. "On the other hand, the money committees are grinding."

There were supposed to be 1,000 bills ready for introduction when the session convened Jan. 20. As of Friday, there were 123 bills in the Senate, compared with 192 at the same point in 1995. The Assembly had 154 bills compared with 177 two years ago.

The bill-drafting process has been slow, Dini said. The new computer process has been late in developing and bill drafters are doing it by hand.

"We don't have enough bills," said Dini, who expects the Legislature to get rolling in the next two weeks. The two money committees are on a schedule to complete business in 100 days. And they usually hold the key when the session ends.

Dini said he and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, hope to close the session this year a couple of weeks early.

The Senate Finance Committee was to continue its examination today of state education programs, including proficiency testing for students. Miller is recommending the creation of a nine-member panel to develop tougher curriculum and tougher examinations.

And the governor is setting aside $3 million in the 1999 fiscal year to pay for remediation programs for those students who don't pass the tests.

The state Board of Education already requires more rigorous tests for fourth- and eighth-graders and has started a new high school proficiency examination this year needed for graduation.

About 85 percent of the students pass the current high school proficiency test on the first try. That is expected to dip to 75 percent in each of the next two fiscal years because of the tougher test.

But students get up to five attempts to pass and graduate. And 96 percent of them make it through.

The Assembly Education Committee today was to hear a planning report from Richard Jarvis, chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada. The state has one of the lowest rates in the nation of high school graduates who go on to college. Jarvis has been trying to boost those numbers.