Lawmakers’ hands tied on funding requests

Erin Neff

Monday, April 2, 2001 | 11:25 a.m.

If the Legislature had the ways and means to fund much-needed projects around the state, it would happily appropriate the $326.8 million requested this session.

But as an Assembly Ways and Means Committee hearing in Las Vegas on Saturday revealed, regardless of the need, the money's just not there.

"I feel bad that we have so many needs," said Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, the Ways and Means chairman. "Right now we're almost $50 million in the hole, and there's just nothing we can do."

That means people such as Tracy Lewis could still be crying over a lack of state assistance to help keep kids out of gangs in the violence-marred North Las Vegas neighborhood that saw eight wanton killings in the past month.

"I'm tired of going to three funerals a day," said Lewis, who works at Booker Elementary School and knew all eight of the youths recently killed. "We need to give them a reason not to get involved with gangs."

A teary Lewis and Henry Thorns requested $100,000 from the state to be allocated to the city of Las Vegas for an amateur athletics and recreation program Thomas runs called the Hen Hen Dog Catchers.

"Don't get discouraged again because we are very limited in funding," Arberry told Thorns, Lewis and a handful boys who showed off pictures of their activities.

Arberry and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, sent a letter to Gov. Kenny Guinn asking him to cut $50 million from his proposed executive budget. Raggio, the chairman of the Finance Committee, has frequently discussed how little money legislators have at their disposal.

An analysis by the Sun of appropriation requests shows just how dire the financial picture is this session.

On the Assembly side a total of $168.8 million has been requested for everything from Alzheimer patient care to energy assistance, textbook purchases and studies into the Fallon leukemia cluster.

Of that total, $56.3 million is included in Guinn's proposed budget. One bill, seeking $73,100 to reproduce old volumes of state records, passed. The remaining $112.5 million doesn't have much of a chance.

"If I see any daylight, I will approach this to see how we can help some," Arberry said.

On the Senate side, a total of $177.9 million has been requested, including $110.1 million that is proposed to be funded in Guinn's budget. Guinn has requested $57.5 million for one-time teacher bonuses -- more than half of his total budget request on the Senate side.

But Raggio's committee has already indefinitely postponed one of Guinn's smaller requests -- a $22,815 appropriation -- and has only passed two bills totaling $11.6 million.

An additional $56.3 million is requested by senators, but not funded in Guinn's budget.

Pork projects are traditionally handed out at the end of the legislative session. There are still 208 such appropriation bills that have not been acted upon.

Such appropriation bills can be a legislator's way to get funding for a project the governor didn't fund. Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, sponsored Assembly Bill 340 to get $6 million for an assisted living center in Las Vegas.

Everything from heart defibrillators to historic preservation and sidewalk construction is requested in the appropriation bills.

In a session already over budget by $50 million, and with dire predictions of the state's fiscal health down the road, it is difficult for lawmakers to have to say no.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, listened Saturday to testimony about programs that helped former welfare recipients get good jobs and about a committee's efforts to restore the old adobe building at Floyd Lamb State Park.

"We have to give them a voice," Perkins said of Saturday's hearing on seven different local appropriation bills. "The people need a chance to be heard."

This session has been largely devoid of any real ideas to address the state's heavy reliance on volatile sales and gaming tax revenue. An initiative petition by the teachers' union to institute a business tax was ruled unconstitutional by the Nevada Supreme Court.

One high-ranking lawmaker is considering amending a bill to address the so-called structural defect created when the state shifted away from having property tax totally fund education.

Details of that proposal are still being considered, and may not have much support from lawmakers who don't want to raise taxes.