Governor and Raggio meet to discuss budget augmentations

Wednesday, May 5, 1999 | 9:42 a.m.

Raggio, R-Reno, was irritated by Guinn's support for an 18 percent pay hike for prison guards. On Monday he told Guinn's policy analyst, Denice Miller, he wanted a full list of Guinn's priorities for spending the revenue added to the state's budget last week.

The lawmakers' concern is that the governor wasn't leaving any money for unfunded social, educational and other priorities the Legislature has been developing since February.

Guinn sent his legal counsel, Scott Scherer, to the Legislature on Tuesday. After a brief talk with Raggio, Scherer said, "We left some for the Legislature to spend."

Within 15 minutes, Guinn himself showed up. He and Raggio conferred briefly in the hallway. Later, Raggio, chief of staff Pete Ernaut and Guinn met for about 20 minutes in the Senate caucus room to try iron out a compromise.

"Don't try make too big a deal out of this," Raggio said afterward. "It wasn't a big thing."

Guinn also backing plans to add two pay steps to the top for all state workers. That, according to Raggio, would cost $6.6 million next year and even more the year after that.

The two added pay steps are in the $44.4 million in priorities Ernaut announced after the state's Economic Forum raised available revenue estimates last week. But the prison guard pay raises weren't.

Added together, that means Guinn promised a total of $60.4 million out of the $66.4 million available in extra funding for the coming two years.