Lawmakers close in on final budget approval

Kiley Russell

Friday, May 28, 1999 | 9:39 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Nevada lawmakers are closing in on final approval of a $14 billion state budget, and have found about $20 million in extra funds for pet projects.

Bills detailing the state's $3.2 billion share of the two-year budget proposal were introduced Thursday in the Assembly and Senate. The rest of the funding comes from federal and other sources.

The budget, which doesn't include any general tax hikes, now must be approved by lawmakers prior to a scheduled Monday adjournment, and then go to Gov. Kenny Guinn for his signature.

More than half the overall budget is earmarked for K-12 and higher education, while a fourth is for various social service programs. About 12 percent goes for public safety, mainly prisons.

Scores of measures that will quickly eat up the extra funding - and then some - were still in Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees pending decisions on how to split up the money.

The decisions will be based largely on the outcome of closed-door meetings between the chairmen of the two money panels, Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, and Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, and a handful of other key lawmakers.

"At the beginning of the session I made an agreement with Raggio that we wouldn't let money bills cross houses if we don't know where we are financially," Arberry said.

That means most proposals not in Guinn's budget - and that weren't included in the budget by either the Senate or Assembly - sat in the money committees until lawmakers figured out how much cash was available to fund them.

Many of the bills left in both committees will never see the light of day because the state lacks the cash to pay for them all. The survivors will be the bills at the top of priority lists created in 11th-hour negotiations between the Senate and Assembly.

Raggio said he's working with the Senate minority leader, Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, and with his own GOP caucus to pick favorite measures for the remaining funding.

For his part, Arberry says he'll find out what the Assembly's favorite money bills are and work with Raggio to create a final, affordable list.

On the Senate side, bills include a $4 million measure supporting summer school programs for public schools.

Arberry says that his biggest priority is a $3 million plan to build a juvenile lock-up in Washoe County - something he says that Assemblywoman Jan Evans, D-Sparks, would want. Evans was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer and couldn't finish the session.

"We'd like to do that for Ms. Evans. Last session, all the other counties got money for juvenile correction centers. We owe this to Ms. Evans and Washoe County," Arberry said.