Changes needed in Guinn budget

Monday, Feb. 28, 2005 | 10:56 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- There are 50 errors in Gov. Kenny Guinn's $5.7 billion proposed budget, and the state needs to factor in an additional $68 million in spending on public schools, officials said this morning.

To cover all of the changes except the school funding matter, State Budget Director Perry Comeaux told the Senate Finance Committee today that it needs to add $1.1 million next fiscal year and $1.6 million in fiscal 2007.

There are some additions of new positions, but a major portion of the budget change is due to the failure to add inflation costs for electricity and natural gas. One of the changes is an increase of more than $800,000 in state aid to local school districts to cover the inflation in utility costs.

The revision also calls for adding six positions to the state Office of Veterans Affairs and 18 additional correctional officers at High Desert State Prison in near Indian Springs. The officers were previously paid through contracts with Washington and Wyoming to handle their inmates.

The question as to whether $34 million a year for public schools was omitted from the budget remained unresolved, however. Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said a letter from the state Education Department asks that the money be added to the aid to public schools budget.

Comeaux said the state built the schools budget on the actual expenditures submitted by the school districts in 2004. But, he added, there was an error in the budget figures supplied by Clark and Washoe counties. He said the two school districts did not include the money spent in the "other obligations" category.

Outside the committee hearing, Comeaux said he was "not convinced" that the money should come out of the Distributive School Fund.

Raggio told Comeaux to get the issue resolved by March 11 when the joint budget committees hold a hearing on school finances.

The errors and adjustments include the six previously reported to the Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.

One big item to be added to the Guinn budget is $3 million over the next two years to provide a rate increase for personal assistant services in Medicaid from $17 per hour to $18.50 per hour.

There also is an addition of $320,000 to pay for inflation in utilities for the state Transportation Department.

But the state Welfare Division is requesting that 11 new positions it asked for should be deleted from the budget. Comeaux said the Department felt initially it needed the extra workers to comply with the federal Medicare Modernization Act.