Assembly OKs tax for more cops

Kirsten Searer

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 | 9:30 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Clark County residents are a step closer to seeing more cops on the streets after the Assembly passed a bill Monday to raise sales taxes.

Assembly Bill 418 gives the Clark County Commission the green light to raise the sales tax in the county by one quarter of a percentage point on July 1, and the Legislature could approve another quarter-percentage point hike by 2009.

The current sales tax rate in the county is 7.5 percent.

"There is no greater deterrent to crime than a police officer in a police car by our schools, in our neighborhoods and by our offices," said Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, a Henderson Police deputy chief, who spoke in favor of the bill.

Proponents argue that police departments in Clark County haven't been able to keep up with the growing number of residents.

While the national average is 2.5 officers per 1,000 residents, the average in Clark County is 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, according to the preamble of the bill.

The sales tax would fund an estimated 1,700 new officers in Clark County in the next 10 years.

While 35 Assembly members voted for the bill, seven Republican said no, an indication of the the opposition that could arise in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Assembly Assistant Minority Leader Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, said he thinks local governments have enough money to spread around already. Others pointed out that their districts voted against the bill, or that officer salaries are traditionally funded with property tax revenues.

In addition to Mabey, Republican Assembly members Francis Allen of Las Vegas,

Sharron Angle of Reno, Joe Hardy of Boulder City, Lynn Hettrick of Gardnerville, Bob Seale of Henderson and Scott Sibley of Las Vegas also voted against the bill. It now goes to the Senate.

The Assembly cleared more than 20 bills Monday, the day before a deadline to move bills out of their house of origin.

Other measures that will now go to the Senate include:

Assembly Joint Resolution 5 would require people circulating an initiative to get signatures of 15 percent of voters in each congressional district to change a law and 20 percent of voters to push a constitutional amendment. The measure passed 31-11, with Republicans posing most of the opposition.

The bill comes after a court decision last year struck down a state rule requiring that initiative petitions have signatures from 10 percent of voters in 13 of the state's 17 counties to qualify for the ballot. Assembly Joint Resolution 8 requires that people circulating petitions be informed of how many signatures they need before they file their signatures.

Questions arose last year when people circulating petitions said they were misinformed of the number of signatures they needed to qualify for the ballot.

Offenders would have to install the device after a first or second DUI offense if their blood alcohol content is 0.18 or more, said Judiciary Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said the bill would allow the state to use money from the Fund for a Healthy Nevada. Disabled recipients would have to make $21,500 or less if they are single or $28,660 or less if they are married.

Assembly Bill 365 would increase the homestead exemption to $400,000 to take into account the "skyrocketing costs of real estate today," said Assemblywoman Genie Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas.

Assembly Bill 353 also would require hospitals to give a 50 percent discount to people with no insurance. They currently receive at least a 30 percent discount under state law, said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno.

All of the Assembly's Republicans voted against the bill, with Mabey saying that a string of bills targeted at hospital costs are unfairly picking on the industry.

"I think hospitals are getting a bad rap," he said, noting that growing hospitals in Nevada are paying for their own expansion costs, taking a burden off of the public sector. The bill passed, 26-16.