Budget compromise is needed

Erin Neff

Wednesday, May 21, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Lawmakers have long been told there's no such thing as a perfect tax, but the legislative money committees are learning there's also no such thing as a perfect budget.

The Assembly Ways and Means Committee is reporting the need for $1.06 billion in new revenue as a result of its budget closings.

The Senate Finance Committee, which still has several budgets left to close, so far thinks the number is closer to $830 million.

The differences will be worked out between the houses starting today, but Gov. Kenny Guinn said Tuesday that neither amount is really enough to get the state out of fiscal trouble.

"It's like the hole is 20 feet deep and we're climbing up 7 feet," Guinn told the Nevada Women's Lobby during a luncheon speech in the Legislative Building.

Even if the Legislature approves the $1 billion in new revenue the governor is requesting, Guinn said that no state employee will get a pay raise until 2010 or 2011 at the earliest.

That doesn't sit well anywhere in the building as lawmakers are trying to build two-thirds support for a tax plan even as the total budget number remains unknown and some legislators are downing antacids at the mere thought of the coming tax vote.

"How far are we going to go?" Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, said after the Ways and Means budget closing report was issued.

Some of the fundamental debate expected during the first three months of the session has hit a fever pitch in committees this week as lawmakers find themselves with 13 more days to approve both budgets and the taxes to fund them.

Josh Griffin, R-Henderson, said he thinks the whole process has been handled in backwards fashion, since budgets are approved without regard for which taxes will be implemented to fund them.

"My number one concern is still the amount of money we're going to spend," Griffin said. "Just knowing that we have to raise taxes has removed the top level controls of those expenditures."

Still Griffin, who serves on both the Ways and Means and Taxation committees, said he did not find any line items in the closed budgets to be excessive.

"In many cases, particularly with the prison department which we examined in the subcommittee I serve on, you can't go any lower or you get sued," Griffin said.

Hettrick has opposed many of the budget closings in recent days, citing a lack of fiscal constraint and the committee's decision to wait two more years before it deals with the pending $200 million hole in the estate tax revenue that helps fund both higher and K-12 education budgets.

"There is just a bottomless pit," Hettrick said. Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, is vice chairwoman of the Ways and Means Committee and said she thought the that committee's budget closings were "extremely reasonable."

"We cut every budget that came before us," Giunchigliani said. "We were sensitive not to cut caseload growth in areas affecting health care, seniors and kids.

"If Mr. Hettrick doesn't agree with paying for health care, seniors and kids, then I guess we're further apart than I thought," she added.