Tax relief was biggest issue for lawmakers

Monday, June 6, 2005 | 11:02 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- With the curtain about to close on the 73rd session of the Nevada Legislature top lawmakers agree that property tax relief for homeowners and businesses will likely be remembered as the single greatest accomplishment of the four-month gathering.

The 2005 session, which will cost taxpayers $17.1 million and is scheduled to end by 1 a.m. Tuesday, also is being noted for the relatively cordial working relationship among Democrats and Republicans, a far cry from the bitter 2003 session that was thrown into turmoil over a record state tax hike.

To end the session on time lawmakers still have to clear one remaining major roadblock, how much of a tax rebate to give back to Nevadans.

Gov. Kenny Guinn has proposed a rebate of up to $300 for each vehicle registration, though critics of his plan say that the majority of checks would be for less than $100. The Assembly on Sunday sent a bill to the Senate that calls for a rebate of $175 for every person older than 17 who holds a Nevada driver's license and for every person older than 54.

Negotiations continued this morning to reach a compromise and clear the way for an on-time adjournment.

The rebate will certainly be an achievement that will carry lawmakers into the 2006 election cycle, but the property tax law has been considered the hallmark of this session.

The property tax law, which takes effect July 1, will place a 3 percent cap on property tax increases for homeowners and an 8 percent cap on increases for businesses over each of the next two years. The property tax relief was pursued in response to rapidly increasing home values, particularly in Southern Nevada.

It wasn't the only accomplishment cited on Sunday by Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, but it was the first on his list.

"We dealt with the property tax relief, which was a big issue," Raggio said while standing behind his front-row desk in the state Senate. "We made funding for education a high priority. We are dealing with the issue that people feel some tax relief should be offered.

"I don't see disappointments. We've been able to come together with civility and accommodated everyone's concerns as far as we could. If you do what is right, and not what will get you reelected, I think you can accomplish a lot."

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, didn't need much time to think about accomplishments.

"Property tax relief," Buckley said on the Assembly floor. "It was a cancer. People felt they would be losing their homes.Capping rates for homeowners at 3 percent will add stability to people's lives so that even if they're retired, they won't be taxed out of their homes.

"We made great strides in education. We got the phase-in of full-day kindergarten. We've set aside $70 million for programs such as school within a school, where schools will be divided into smaller campuses. We made great strides in health care, like employee health care for small businesses and an increase in mental health funding to free up emergency rooms.

"And there was a lot of consumer protection, such as regulation of payday loans, and legislation addressing dishonest car salesmen, as well as Spanish-speaking individuals who pretend they are attorneys and then get people to pay them $10,000 for immigration cases."

The Legislature's other top lawmakers -- Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, and Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, also put the property tax relief at the top of their lists.

Perkins also praised lawmakers for agreeing to fund all-day kindergarten for at-risk schools to the tune of roughly $30 million even though that amount was considerably below what Assembly Democrats had hoped to attain.

"We would have liked more and we look forward to the Legislature funding it fully in the future," Perkins said. "I would have liked to have seen more for kindergarten through 12th grade in per pupil spending and for more early intervention education programs. But on a whole Nevadans are winners this session."

Titus was unsuccessful at getting a property tax freeze but felt her proposal was taken into consideration when lawmakers settled on the 3 percent cap for homeowners. She also took credit for legislation that will raise $19 million for state parks through the sale of 80 acres in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The land is to be administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

Lawmakers had plenty more to smile about. For Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, it was legislation that requires all elected judges to have a certain amount of experience practicing law, ranging from 15 years for Nevada Supreme Court judges down to 10 years for District Court judges and five years for Justice Court judges.

"As fast as we're growing as a state and with the addition of courts I thought that was a reasonable thing," Lee said.

For Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, it was increased spending on new construction for Nevada's universities.

"Because of the growth we have had in higher education enrollment that was a great accomplishment," Arberry said.

And for Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, it was simply getting a taxpayers' bill of rights proposal on the table, even though it was defeated in the Senate Finance Committee. He vowed that his proposal -- which would limit state spending to population growth plus inflation and is modeled after a Colorado law -- will be proposed as a state constitutional amendment on the November 2006 general election ballot.

"I will work hard to get that on the ballot," Beers said. "The problem is that government can't control its growth."

As happy as Hettrick was about the property tax cap, he was equally despondent over what he termed a 52 percent increase in state spending, which will have spanned the period from July 2003 through June 2007.

"That puts this state at risk if there is a future downturn in the economy," Hettrick said.

Assembly Judiciary Committee Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, a retired high school teacher, fretted that lawmakers were making it harder, not easier, for students to obtain and retain Millennium Scholarships to attend Nevada universities.

"The purpose of this program is to make kids realize that it is possible for them to go to college," Anderson said. "That encourages them to stay in school."

And Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, expressed concern that more wasn't done to protect rural counties from water grabs that benefit Southern Nevada, though lawmakers agreed to spend $1 million to study the environmental impact of siphoning water from Northern Nevada.

"Our biggest problem is trying to keep Southern Nevada from taking all of our water," Carpenter said.

As for civility, most lawmakers agreed that there was more this session than in 2003. That's when the tax battle got so over-heated it resulted in special sessions and involvement by the Nevada Supreme Court.

Perkins conceded that he deserved some of the blame for that acrimony but said he did more to reach across the aisle to Assembly Republicans this year and believes his efforts paid off.

"My number one goal was to return some restraint into this session," Perkins said. "I reached out to the minority caucus to make sure that there was communication."

Buckley said she, too, believes that Assembly Democrats did a better job of reaching out to Republicans. And Hettrick agreed.

"Clearly, the speaker reached out and I applaud him for that," Hettrick said. "But there's always room for more of that."

In the Senate, Raggio said bipartisan cooperation was apparent. He said it helped that lawmakers agreed to "look forward, not behind," by choosing not to dwell on the acrimony that marked the 2003 session.

"I've had excellent relations with all senators," Raggio said. "I was pleased to have Sen. Titus on the Finance Committee. I also reached out to Speaker Perkins and to the chairman of Ways and Means, Morse Arberry."

Titus echoed Raggio's sentiment about cooperation in the Senate, saying it was "very good" this session.

"There's more tension between both houses, and I think that is tied to the potential governor's race," said Titus, who has been preparing to square off against Perkins for the Democratic nomination in 2006.

As for Senate Commerce and Labor Committee Chairman Randolph Townsend, R-Reno: "It was clearly better this year than it was in 2003 but not as good as it should be. We can debate and disagree on issues but we shouldn't be getting caught up in the emotions of the moment. We didn't work as well together as we could have."

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