Hiring of temporary staff begins for 2003

Monday, Sept. 23, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- With the 2003 Legislature set to begin in February, hiring of temporary staff is already starting.

Lorne Malkiewich, director of the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau, said the first employees, mostly research analysts, will be coming on next months. There will be a staggered hiring schedule until the start of the session.

There will be 72 positions hired for the upcoming Legislature, down from 77 in 2001. The cost will be $1.9 million, about $460,000 higher than two years ago.

Malkiewich said there has been an 8 percent pay raise given to state workers since 2001 and that some temporary jobs have been upgraded to a higher level.

Fifteen additional police officers will be hired for six months and there will be 16 additional janitors to clean up after the legislators, lobbyists, press and public.

This hiring does not include the secretaries and other staff employed for the lawmakers during the 120-day meeting.

In other business the legislative commission deferred a request from Assemblyman Joe Dini, D-Yerington, for an audit of the $15 million program in retrofitting state buildings for energy efficiency.

Dini, who is chairman of the legislative audit committee, said there is no central oversight of the energy retrofit contracts on a statewide basis and that there is no monitoring whether savings in energy costs materialize.

Dini, who is retiring, said in a letter to the legislative commission that there have been problems with similar programs in Oregon and Florida. In these places, he said, the energy savings fall short of the cost of improvements and there is a lack of measurement of savings.