Guinn’s veto of audit stands

Monday, June 4, 2001 | 10:28 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Democratic senators failed Sunday to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of a bill that would have required a legislative audit of the state Transportation Department, whose board Guinn chairs.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas said the department spends hundreds of millions of dollars but it is "inaccessible and unaccountable." The impression, Titus said, is "that the decisions are being based on politics and not good planning.

The department has "a three quarters of a billion dollar budget," Titus said, and the $10,000 sought from the agency to finance the audit "is a drop in the bucket."

Other lawmakers complained about construction programs in Southern Nevada.

But the effort to override Senate Bill 415 failed on a 10-11 vote. Fourteen votes are needed to overturn the governor's decision.

This is the second time the governor has vetoed a bill and the second time that an override effort failed. Earlier he disapproved the so-called "boom box" bill, and the Assembly fell short in its efforts to turn it around.

Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, was the only Republican Sunday to join the nine Democrats.

O'Donnell said the call for the audit was "not indictment against any governor," but he said the department makes promises "time after time" to build sound walls in Southern Nevada to protect residents from increasing noise as highways are expanded nearer to homes.

"There are taking more and more back yards and they promise sound walls and we don't get them," O'Donnell said. "And we can't find out why we can't get them."

He said legislators have been "consistently stonewalled" when they try to obtain information from the department.

Sen. Joe Neal, D-Las Vegas, said that by the veto, Guinn "seems to want us to operate in the dark. This is the wrong public policy. Something is awry here."

Neal complained the department has been working on projects along Interstate 15 in Southern Nevada for almost 10 years, but it seems they never work outside the Strip area.

Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, the only senator to speak in Guinn's defense, said the Legislature has the right to direct an audit of the Transportation Department without the bill. He said there were legitimate issues to be examined.

But, Amodei said, he supported sustaining the veto "because of loyalty to Kenny Guinn. I have to work with him."

Guinn noted there is already a process for the legislative auditor to examine the agency. It was last audited in 1996.

"I believe another audit is prudent and perhaps should have been ordered sooner than 2001," Guinn said in his veto message Saturday.

"I cannot support a bill that takes $10,000 of highway funds designed to increase the safety of our citizens through improvements to our state highways when we already have a system and the funds in place to perform such an audit."