Lawmakers looking at school violence, taxes, university funds

Monday, Aug. 30, 1999 | 3:11 a.m.

Public hearings will begin in September and October. The goal by next summer: to draft recommendations for the next legislative session that starts in February 2001.

Those studies result in up to half of all bill draft proposals in any given session. Invariably, the focus is on topics not sufficiently addressed in the previous Legislature or those anticipated to take center stage the next time.

Such is the case this year. There's a panel on school safety and violence in the wake of April's fatal shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. There's a panel on reapportionment, which lawmakers will tackle in 2001 to redraw political boundaries based on the 2000 Census.

And there's a potential powder keg over how much money should go to the University of Nevada, Reno, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the community college campuses.

Funding equity threatened to explode in the 1999 Legislature after some southern lawmakers, prompted by Las Vegas members of the university Board of Regents, questioned why UNR gets more money per student than faster-growing UNLV.

But lawmakers avoided a major fight by adjusting some disbursements and promising evaluation from a study committee in the interim.

"We'll put heavy attention on that, whether we need to change the formula," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno.

Assemblywoman Bonnie Parnell, D-Carson City, a teacher, will join a Las Vegas senator, educators including Yerington High School Principal Ken Savage, and law enforcement officials on the Commission on School Safety and Juvenile Violence.

"We want to find out what the deans and others are seeing as issues. Do we have a problem with kids feeling alienated?" Parnell said. "And we want to know about involvement with hate groups. That, especially, I find terrifying. We must have zero tolerance."

"After Columbine, there are so many questions. Warning signs were overlooked. We have to make sure that's not happening here," she said.

It's no accident the reapportionment and redistricting interim panel contains the leaders of both political parties in the Legislature.

Whoever has control of the Senate and Assembly after the 2000 elections will have the upper hand in determining where congressional, legislative and local government political boundaries will be for the next decade.

But don't expect fireworks before the 2001 session starts. The interim panel's duties will be "pretty perfunctory," said Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, chairwoman.

"We'll take a look at what's available with computers and how we can more quickly and effectively draw the lines," she said.

"We won't get into the juicy stuff of where the lines will go. We'll save that for the session."