Budget-cutting talk targets scholarship

Kirsten Searer

Thursday, May 5, 2005 | 9:54 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Looking to save state money? Start with the Millennium Scholarship, several people told a Senate committee on Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, held a meeting Wednesday to get input on which parts of the state budget could be trimmed.

"We're not interested in hearing additions to the budget at this time," Raggio cautioned. "We've had ample time to do that."

In less than an hour of testimony from lobbyists and legislators, many pointed first to the Millennium Scholarship.

Some suggested that the state raise the required grade-point average college students must maintain while on the scholarship. Or, they said, the state could tie admittance into the scholarship with proficiency tests.

Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, suggested the state cut illegal aliens out of the program and require students to have attended four years of high school in Nevada before qualifying for the Millennium Scholarship.

Beers presented a long list of potential reductions, saying, "I've found some of my colleagues consider our budget to be Kevlar in that it cannot be cut."

He said the governor's proposed budget would increase state spending by 24 percent from last year.

That brings the four-year total increase in the state budget to more than 50 percent, Beers said.

He also suggested cutting several Medicaid programs deemed optional by the federal government, which he said would save more than $210 million per year.

Assemblyman Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, also proposed changes in Medicaid, saying patients should be required to pay co-pays for all programs.

Beers pointed out that Nevada has a lower than average rate of people with disabilities or in poverty, yet the state pays more per recipient in Medicaid than California and other neighboring states.

He also suggested eliminating the state's dental school and shifting higher education resources, reducing the amount the state contributes to the Public Employee Retirement System and closing the state office to fight the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

"That battle has been won," he said. "It is a dead duck, yet we continue to spend millions of dollars of the general fund, I'm not sure on what."

While the Department of Motor Vehicles has reduced the wait time in its offices to less than 1 hour, Beers said the state could eliminate 20 percent of positions in counter services and increase the wait to just less than 1.5 hours.

The committee meeting came after Gov. Kenny Guinn told legislators they would have $175 million to spend this session after his budget proposals.

Legislative leaders said their number crunchers are double checking those figures now. While Guinn publicly said he would veto a budget without his $300 million rebate to taxpayers through vehicle registrations, legislative leaders still said they weren't ready to commit to the idea.

"The rebate is still an issue we will deal with," said Raggio, who said he would look at a rebate after he has dealt with other budget issues.

Raggio said he wasn't worried about the governor's threatened veto.

"After 32 years in the Senate nothing makes me nervous," he said.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said there's seems to be some support for some sort of rebate.