After initial praise, governor’s budget hit with criticism

Erin Neff

Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2001 | 11:03 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Lawmakers agree that state employees, university professors and classroom teachers need higher salaries.

So Gov. Kenny Guinn's budget proposal met with initial praise for rewarding employees and giving them less reason to leave state positions for higher paying jobs in local government.

But a few hours after Guinn outlined his pay raise and teacher bonus plans during Monday's State of the State address, some officials began wondering whether his proposals might do more harm than good.

During a meeting Tuesday of the Legislative Commission's Budget Subcommittee, a number of lawmakers hypothesized that Guinn's budget could lead to tuition hikes at state universities, add to teacher recruiting trouble and create potential budget shortfalls as soon as 2003.

Guinn proposes spending $58 million to give classroom teachers a one-time 5 percent bonus. He also said that if money is left over at the end of the current fiscal year, he would call a special session of the Legislature to discuss teacher pay raises.

"I would like to express right here that I didn't vote for a 120-day session to have special sessions added," said Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas. "The mandate is on us to deal with the salary issue here."

The Nevada State Education Association, the schoolteachers union, wants to impose a 4 percent tax on profits above $50,000 of Nevada businesses. The association released a statement Monday that a poll shows 61 percent of those questioned favor the profits tax.

Some see Guinn's bonus as a way to ignore the union's issue.

"I think we need to step up to the plate and find ways to retain teachers," said Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas.

Giunchigliani, a Clark County teacher on leave during the session, argued the offered bonus will do little to recruit teachers, or to retain the ones the state has.

The committee plans to address the school budgets today, and is expected to learn that the $92 per pupil increase in proposed spending is largely to offset increasing electric and natural gas costs at individual schools.

Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, said he worried Guinn's 2 percent raise for university professors -- with a planned 2 percent match by the Board of Regents -- wasn't possible in each of the next two fiscal years, given current budgets.

"It sounds like tuition would have to be increased," said Coffin, whose wife is a professor at UNLV. "I worry that there would have to be substantial tuition increases to get them to that state."

Senate Majority Leader William Raggio, R-Reno, said the Regents had assured the state they could match up to a 3 percent salary raise. Still, he asked for more specific information from the regents when the university budget is discussed Thursday.

In addition to concerns about specific proposals, Giunchigliani said she thought Guinn's budget formula could create a starting deficit at the beginning of the next biennium in 2003.

"Do you really think that this money's going to be there?" she asked Perry Comeaux, the state's Administration Director.

Since money reverts to the state at the end of each biennium, Comeaux said he was confident the governor's estimates will hold true.

Guinn said his budget would leave $106.8 million left over at the start of the 2003 fiscal year. But since Guinn is using a higher-than-normal "reversion" rate for the second year of his current budget plan, some believe he could be $40 million in the hole.