Tough decisions remain at midpoint of session

Monday, April 2, 2001 | 10:34 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Legislature reaches its halfway mark Thursday, when the $130 per day pay for lawmakers is terminated and legislators must start making tough choices.

The major issues of taxes, energy, budget, education and reapportionment lie ahead as they did when lawmakers opened the session Feb. 5.

"So far things have run smoothly," Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio said. "We haven't had to make the hard decisions yet."

Thursday is the 60th day of the 120-day session. Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson said, "We're meeting our deadlines. We're getting the work processed. I couldn't be happier."

Fewer than 20 bills, most of them minor and technical, have passed both houses and have been signed by Gov. Kenny Guinn. There are more than 1,200 bills in the Senate and Assembly committees.

The first part of the session, as Perkins points out, is given to introducing bills and gathering information. Eight days after the mid-point on April 13 the committees must pass out all bills from their respective houses to meet the deadline.

The Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee are ahead of schedule. They started approving minor budgets last week, about seven days before they must begin the process.

"Those are simple budgets," said Raggio, chairman of the Finance Committee. "We won't close the hard budgets until after May 1 when we know the actual revenue. "There are serious budget concerns, and for the first time we will probably have less revenue than originally projected.

He said he's asking agencies to provide alternatives on "one-shot" items, "if we have to make 5, 10 or 15 percent cuts." One shots are one-time items such as furniture, equipment or cars.

Experts have predicted that Guinn's $3.4 billion budget will have to be shaved by $120 million over the next 27 months to keep it balanced. The Economic Forum meets April 30 to make the final projections on how much money will be available for the rest of this fiscal year and the next biennium.

The bills before the two budget committees are exempt from the April 13 deadline for passage.

Energy has dominated a good part of the session as the Legislature seeks ways to avoid rolling blackouts as experienced in California and to avoid skyrocketing power costs. Assembly Democrats have pushed through a bill to end the never-started deregulation of the electric industry and to stop Nevada Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Power Co. from selling their generating plants. The Republican-dominated Senate Commerce and Labor Committee has held weeks of hearings, but no final vote has been taken. One is expected this week.

Still to be decided: how rates for consumers will be drafted, how much will be set aside to help low-income families pay their monthly power bills; what part alternate sources of energy such as sun and wind will play in helping Nevada solve the energy crunch.

Raggio said the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee and the Assembly Special Committee on Energy "are getting together on the energy problem, They are coming along."

Raising taxes to help fund pay raises for school teachers and other educational programs has been a topic of discussion. But there's been no movement. Sen. Joe Neal's bill to boost the tax on casinos probably doesn't have a chance to get out of committee. There has been some backroom discussion about imposing a 1 1/2 percent profits tax on business. But so far it's all talk.

Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Assembly Taxation Committee, is silent on whether he thinks there will be any tax increase bill this session.

The census figures have been flowing in to allow the lawmakers to start thinking about drawing lines for Nevada's third congressional district; the Legislature, the board of regents of the University and Community College of Nevada and the state Board of Education. "That will be a tough problem," says Raggio.

One key is whether the Legislature will be expanded from its present 63 members to allow the rural counties to retain some of their members. Northern Nevada favors this approach but it has opposition from Clark County, which wants to keep the same numbers.

Perkins says, "Why solve them in the first half. We're meeting our deadlines. As long as we take care them before June 4, we've done our job."

June 4 is the end of the session and anything passed beyond that date is void.