Job growth in proposed budget clarified

Tuesday, June 17, 2003 | 9:49 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Guinn administration on Monday said there are 567 new state jobs in the state budget, not the 1,700 that some Republican lawmakers claim.

State Budget Director Perry Comeaux sent a memo to all lawmakers noting that the total number of state employees in the 2005 fiscal year will be 16,665, a 3.5 percent gain over the current total. Comeaux said a previous memo prepared by the Legislative Counsel bureau has been "misinterpreted by certain legislators."

Comeaux said the legislative document showed 862 new positions the first year of the biennium and 916 the second year. Those numbers should not be added together, he said. And after those numbers were announced, the Legislature eliminated some positions, so the actual number of new state jobs is 567.

"A legislator was quoted as stating that the Legislature had approved over 1,700 new positions for the biennium. Obviously, this is absolutely wrong," Comeaux said.

Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, who has been one of the biggest critics of the governor's budget, said the Legislative Counsel Bureau showed a budget-by-budget breakdown of 916 new employees over the biennium and the governor's office never presented a detailed breakdown to allow comparisons as to where any discrepancies might occur.

And even if the governor is right about the 567 new positions, that's two and a half times greater than 200 new employees authorized in 2001 Beers said. And the 567 total marks one of the largest state personnel increases in recent history, he said.

Last week Guinn sent a letter to Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, taking issue with full-page advertisement in Las Vegas and Reno newspapers about the growth in the budget.

The advertisement, signed by real estate magnate Robert Bigelow of Las Vegas, questioned the budget increase of 32 percent while noting the population will grow by only about 6 percent over the same period.

The governor said the ranks of people who get state service grow at a much faster rate than the general population.

Beers said the Guinn argument is a debate about philosophy. He said Guinn is backing the classic tax-and-spend argument while at least one-third of the members of both the Senate and Assembly are pushing a "do not tax and do not spend" philosophy.

He said the governor wants the budget "to grow faster than the people it serves."

Guinn has been at odds with Assembly Republicans who want him to reopen the budget and reduce the proposed spending before they will approve any tax increase.

Beers said he has not heard of any negotiations between the two sides after the session closed.