Editorial: When term ‘zero’ means anything but

Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2001 | 8:43 a.m.

State Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, assured fellow lawmakers during the 1999 Legislature that a proposed dental school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, would not need state money. But that promise by Rawson, a dentist and the leading proponent of a dental school, proved to be illusory. The 2001 Legislature ultimately went several steps further, setting aside $6 million in state funds to build an interim dental school.

On Monday the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee took a leap that destroys any idea that the state's involvement in a dental school will be nominal. The Interim Finance Committee voted to make the dental school permanent, taking the $6 million and using it instead to buy three buildings located on 18 acres of land near UNLV, funding that will be applied to the estimated $29.5 million cost to build and equip the dental school.

This is one bait-and-switch scheme that Nevada taxpayers will pay for dearly in years to come.

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