Regents want to look into Rawson deal

Kirsten Searer and Christina Littlefield

Friday, April 2, 2004 | 11:40 a.m.

University regents said today they will look into a report that state Sen. Ray Rawson's assistant earned her full salary as a CCSN administrative assistant while she worked in last year's legislative session.

"It just doesn't look right," Regent Tom Kirkpatrick said.

But Rawson, R-Las Vegas, said he worked out an "above-the-board" deal to allow Linda Chapman to oversee work at the Community College of Southern Nevada and help him run the Human Resources Committee, where she had experience as a legislative secretary.

"There wasn't anything inappropriate about it," said Rawson, the former head of the CCSN dental school and the Senate assistant majority leader.

Chapman, who makes $69,845 a year at CCSN, is an experienced and efficient secretary, he said, who knows the ins and outs of legislative work.

"I can't function up there if I have to break in new people," Rawson said. "It's important that I have a staff who understand what's going on. That's why I asked my secretary if she would go up."

Chapman still oversaw CCSN business, and typically returned to Las Vegas on weekends to do her work, he said.

She was in charge of scheduling classes, textbook management and she returned for a full week to work on computer files when the college's system was hacked, Rawson said.

Patty Charlton, the college's vice president for finance and administration, said the college was aware of the arrangement and it was approved by the then-CCSN president Ron Remington.

"There was a need for her to continue to work on college-related activities," Charlton said.

Chapman did not receive checks from both CCSN and the Legislature. Instead, the Legislative Counsel Bureau sent her legislative pay to CCSN to compensate the college for the time she spent on legislative work.

"It was an abnormal situation," Charlton said. "I can tell you we wouldn't do it again, especially if there are concerns."

The Legislative Counsel Bureau also approved the deal.

"We thought this was from the Legislature's perspective a very good deal," said Lorne Malkiewich, director of the bureau. "A lot of people have experience, but she's also very good."

Rawson and his supporters said that this situation is being blown out of context because of recent cases of double-dipping among legislators.

"The sad thing about this is we're talking about the last person in the Legislature who would do anything inappropriate in regard to double dipping," said Joe Brezny, executive director of the Republican Senate Caucus.

"But because of the precedent set by (Democratic Assemblyman) Wendell Williams where there was impropriety, I can understand that the public is looking at this and trying to think, 'is it an apples-to-apples comparison?' It really isn't."

Williams and other lawmakers with public jobs were at the center of a controversy after the 2003 Legislature after questions arose about public employees receiving pay from their jobs while in Carson City.

The deal with Chapman worked like this: In the last Legislature, Chapman drew her full pay as an assistant to the dental school at CCSN -- where she is paid about $1,300 a week.

But Rawson said that she spent about 80 percent of her time helping him with Legislative business in Carson City. Legislative secretaries make about $900 a week.

Chapman did not receive both salaries. Instead, the Legislative Council Bureau directed her checks as a legislative worker to CCSN -- so that the college was compensated for the time Chapman took to complete legislative business.

Chapman took a leave of absence in 2001 from CCSN to work for Rawson in the Legislature. But she lost health benefits for both herself and her teenage daughter, Rawson said.

"It didn't seem right or just to me," he said. "So that's why I asked the question. If I had been told I would have found somebody else to deal with my work in the session. But I was told it was appropriate."

Rawson is up for election and due to have a tough primary. Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, plans to run for the Senate seat.

The Board of Regents has been evaluating whether it needs to strengthen its policies on state employees who serve in the Legislature for the last several months.

The current language being proposed would better define the process for applying for leave and address the issue of whether employees may retain health benefits while on leave.

Regents also are considering whether state employees should be allowed to serve in the Legislature at all.

Action on the proposed policy changes was postponed at the March meeting. Regents said they will wait until the court rule on an Attorney General opinion that state employees cannot serve in the Legislature.

Regent Steve Sisolak said he wants "clear answers" to ensure that Chapman adequately performed her duties as a CCSN employee. Kirkpatrick argued that Regents need to set rules on Legislative service so that everyone is paid fairly for what they do.

"We need some kind of controls to make sure things like this don't pop up," he said.