Budget nears completion

Tuesday, May 29, 2001 | 10:39 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The $3.7 billion two-year state budget, which is being put to bed this week by the Legislature, carries a basket of goodies for groups ranging from state workers and doctors to foster parents and teachers.

Gov. Kenny Guinn called it the most "stretched" budget he has seen in his 38 years of public administration.

But Deputy State Budget Director Don Hataway said that 99 percent of what Guinn proposed has been approved.

One of the thorniest issues of the budget debate was pay raises for schoolteachers. Guinn put aside $57 million for a one-time bonus this year, which translated to a 4 percent to 5 percent payment.

After starts and stumbling, a tentative agreement was reached over the weekend to raise certain state fees to give teachers a 3 percent bonus this year and 2 percent the following year. In the 2003-2004 budget, those bonuses would be treated as a 4 percent pay raise, boosting the base pay on which any future teacher raises would be based.

The plan, worked by Guinn and Sen. Mark James, R-Las Vegas, also calls for a $2,000 bonus for new teachers hired this year and $2,500 for those hired next year. Another $14.5 million is set aside to make sure vital education programs, such as the arts and athletics, are not sliced. And $10 million will go for technology in schools.

But other programs may not be as fortunate. A proposal by the governor to create a $5 million fund for health coverage for the uninsured is on life support as the session nears its end next Monday.

The proposal is stalled in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and may be one of the cutbacks needed to achieve $121.5 million in savings required by shortfalls in expected tax revenue.

A plan by the governor to increase the property tax rebates given to senior citizens who earn less than $21,500 has already died in that committee as part of that cost-cutting effort.

Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, said he hated to make the cuts in the budget, but the revenue shortage made it necessary. He said the state is not at the level of providing some of the services deserved by the public, but some areas have been improved this year.

Some social programs have been enhanced, and in addition to teachers, government workers, dentists and others in the medical profession could get pay raises.

Programs that survived the budget cuts:

Health

* Legislators have set aside $81 million in federal and state funds to provide increases for those who serve Medicaid patients. Nursing homes will receive 21.6 percent more this October, to $120 a day, then a 4.3 percent hike in July 2002.

Hospitals will get an 8.4 percent higher reimbursement rate for admitted Medicaid patients this October and a 2.3 percent boost the following July. Physicians are due for a 1.2 percent hike this October and 3.7 percent the next year. Dentists will receive 3.7 percent increases in their fees in each of the two years.

* Starting in July 2002, women will be eligible under Medicaid for treatment of cervical and breast cancer.

* Senior citizens with incomes of less than $21,500 will be able to qualify for a free prescription drug insurance policy.

* The program to provide insurance for children of families of the working poor has been financed to allow the current 18,000 enrolled to grow to 23,887 over the next two years.

Pay raises

* University faculty and state workers will get 4 percent pay raises in each of the next two years.

* Supreme Court justices and district judges will get a 30 percent raise in January 2003 after the next election.

* The estimated 800 foster parents in the state program are slated for a 47 percent increase in their payments. For children 12 and under, the rate will go from $12 to $18 a day. For those 13 and above, parents will receive $20 per day, up from $14.

Higher education

* The University and Community College System of Nevada will receive enough money to start a new state college at Henderson and funds to begin building a dental school at UNLV.

Social programs

* Welfare families where the adult is unable to participate in a work program will see a $94-a-month increase in January and $93 in January 2003, state Welfare Administrator Mike Willden said. Those cases involve a parent who has to stay home to take care of a child or where the adult is too sick to work.

Willden estimated there are 500 to 550 such cases out of a caseload of 8,000.

Miscellaneous