Lawmakers OK disaster relief funds

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 1999 | 9:08 a.m.

The Legislature's Interim Finance Committee also approved budget changes and other requests, and allocated almost $2 million in remedial funds to individual schools and school districts.

The committee managed to make the appropriations Tuesday without drastically reducing its contingency fund as originally feared. The $8 million fund has been reduced because of fire and other emergencies to $4.5 million with 21 months remaining before it can be replenished.

The state has spent $4.6 million fighting fires this summer, and state Forester Roy Trenoweth estimated another $1.4 million may be needed before the season ends this year.

"The fire season hasn't ended yet," he said. "Every day is a new experience."

But Trenoweth said almost $3 million of the total spent so far should be recovered from federal agencies and returned to the contingency fund.

Lawmakers had no qualms about appropriating the money, only seeking assurances that reimbursements from such federal agencies as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would be obtained as quickly as possible to replenish the contingency fund.

Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-North Las Vegas, worried about the contingency fund balance, tried to talk the Desert Research Institute down in its annual request for cloud-seeding money this winter.

The research arm of the University and Community College System of Nevada has been doing the work for several years, using an aircraft as well as 16 ground generators located in the mountains of Nevada to increase the snowpack.

But Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, said it would be shortsighted to reduce funding for the program. If it weren't spent this year on cloud seeding, it would be spent next year on firefighting, he said.

Almost $1 million of the remedial money for education approved by lawmakers will be spent at 11 Nevada schools where students are below expected achievement levels in three of four areas tested by exam.