Goodman vows fight to keep tax shares

Friday, Dec. 6, 2002 | 10:18 a.m.

Las Vegas and Clark County lobbyists will fight any attempts to take property tax money from municipalities to help balance the state budget during the 2003 Legislature, Mayor Oscar Goodman said Thursday.

"We're going to present a united front," Goodman said when asked about a suggestion Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio that the Legislature revisit the formula the state uses to share property tax revenue with municipalities.

During his weekly press conference Thursday, Goodman said he and Clark County officials will lobby state lawmakers to keep them from using money that was destined for Southern Nevada to address the state's budget woes.

"I don't think our constituents will stand for less police, fire protection and parks," he said.

Raggio, R-Reno, said Thursday his proposal is not to take the present property tax money away from local governments -- it's to share in future increased taxes.

"We're talking about reallocating new revenues," he said. "Nobody has a claim on that."

But Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said the long-term solution to the state's financial problems is not to take money away from local governments.

Both he and Raggio said all local governments in the state would probably oppose such a plan.

Perkins said if the state took the local share of property taxes, the "huge growth in Southern Nevada would end up feeding the rest of the state."

He noted that a shift in the tax revenue was not one of the recommendations of Gov. Kenny Guinn's Task Force on Taxes.

Raggio stressed he was not proposing to take any of the present property tax taken from local governments. But as the revenues grow, the state would share in the increases.

Raggio said every option for new tax revenues would be explored, not only the recommendations of Guinn's task force.