Columnist Erin Neff: Legislators could use a field trip — to schools

Erin Neff

Friday, June 13, 2003 | 6:27 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The tab is running on both the expense of the special session and the cost for continuing to do nothing.

State lawmakers have been so mired in the capital amassing close to $300,000 in bills since the special session began, that they certainly haven't been in a classroom.

And the disconnect between the Legislative Building and the schools is so obvious, that it's time all lawmakers -- now on a two-week sabbatical from discussing the budget for the state schools and how to fund it -- should take a field trip to any school.

They'll find plenty of classrooms in Las Vegas with more than half of the students moving in and out during the school year.

They'll find students learning in trailers and kindergarteners struggling to adapt in a classroom of 40.

More than touring a classroom, they need to go back to school and take a refresher course. Lawmakers have failed to study and do their homework on the issue.

If they had, they would have found that Nevada isn't just failing its schools, it's ignoring the future.

But the Legislature has a long history of doing that.

Lawmakers have known for 23 years that this day would come. Economists forecast that the inherent instability in the tax base would create massive budget holes if not addressed.

In 1981 the Legislature followed the lead of California and weaned itself off of property taxes, but as study after study has shown, that has left the state budget at the whim of shifts in the economy.

Despite all the signs, the Legislature let four full sessions pass before approving the current business license tax in 1991 as a way to try to broaden the tax base. Five more have passed without any change at all.

The state is now feeling the effects of its tax structure. Gaming and sales taxes, which fluctuated in the economic downturn, make up more than 60 percent of the budget and the state is facing a deficit.

Now when lawmakers knew they finally couldn't ignore the problem any longer, they did even worse. They looked the nearly $2 billion school budget dead in the eyes and quit trying to figure out how to fund it.

Lawmakers don't want to be taught, and they don't want to lead.

They have summarily ignored the work of the Governor's Task Force on Tax Policy in Nevada and continue to offer up ideas that fly in the face of what the experts and history have suggested is best for the state.

When given 120 days to complete their work, lawmakers asked for more time, and then more, and more still, before asking for a time out.

They talk about whether banks, gaming, tourists or business should pay more. They never talk about whether teachers should be paid more or students should be paid more attention.

On July 25, when they return, lawmakers will have to lead. They will finally have the kind of deadline no one can extend for them -- six days to work out their differences and fund education before the fiscal year ends.

All 63 lawmakers should talk to a teacher -- not about the piddly pay raise they authorized that still doesn't bring a starting salary to $30,000 -- but about the responsibility of teaching Nevada's youth the skills they need to survive and succeed.

Dozens of young men representing the American Legion's Nevada Boys State were at the Legislature on Thursday. Typically the program occurs when lawmakers are finished with the session.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, thanked the young men for coming and told them the lawmakers were engaged in a "serious session with a very serious and difficult problem."

"I hope you can learn something from our example," he said.

Indeed they will.