Guinn to develop contingency plans for reduced government

Thursday, June 5, 2003 | 11:17 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Gov. Kenny Guinn said today he will start developing contingency plans to run state government at a reduced level in case the Legislature doesn't come up with a tax plan by Friday.

He said he won't extend the Friday deadline for the lawmakers to work in special session unless they are "relatively close" to an agreement on a plan for $869 million in additional taxes.

The governor has already signed the appropriations act that calls for state agencies to spend $4.9 billion over the next two years from the state general fund. And he has signed the authorization act that permits the agencies to spend federal funds and other fees.

He said he does not want to call his agency heads together to work on a contingency plan while the lawmakers are in session.

But if they don't reach agreement by the 5 p.m. deadline Friday, he said he will meet with his Cabinet next Tuesday or Wednesday.

The governor has enough money in the general appropriations act to run government for a short time. But he said the public schools could have major problems.

The Legislature has not passed the Distributive School Fund account that will send $1.6 billion to schools in the next two years. Without that, he can't allocate any money to the districts.

The bill for the school money passed the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday. But Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said that will be included in a tax bill. If the lawmakers don't pass a tax bill, the money for the schools would be held up.

"This is a very serious issue," said Guinn. "I can't spend any money on education."

He said Clark County has hired only 200 new teachers and have made offers to another 200. But they need 1,100. The later it gets, the more difficult it gets to recruit good teachers, he said.

"The issue is how aggressive can we get in hiring additional employees," said Walt Rulffes, deputy superintendent of operations for the Clark County School District. "The last thing we want to do is make an offer to someone and not be able to follow through. That would destroy our credibility and seriously harm our future recruiting efforts."

Guinn said he has already researched what authority he has in curtailing government spending. But there are some restrictions. State workers would have to get notice and then they would have "bumping" rights to take a lower paying job, knocking that person out of work.

There are no firm plans yet on what would happen.

If the Legislature fails to meet the deadline, he will give them a week or two "respite" and then call them back into a second or a third special session.

What the Legislature has done, Guinn said is to give the state a check for $869 million but there is no money in the bank. The in new revenues are needed to balance the budget.