Annual budget sessions to get look

By Cy Ryan

Friday, Dec. 26, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Perhaps Nevada would do a better job keeping its financial house in order if lawmakers who hammer out its budgets every other year met annually instead.

State Sen. Joyce Woodhouse thinks so. The Henderson Democrat is proposing the Legislature add a 30-day budget session in even-numbered years, between the 120-day regular legislative sessions in odd-numbered years.

“We would do a better job looking at the revenue and the budget needs rather than just trying to fix something,” Woodhouse said.

Annual sessions have been proposed before. The state even gave it a try in 1960.

Opponents say they run counter to the state’s political culture, which is based on a “citizen Legislature.”

Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said annual sessions would limit the number of residents able to serve in the Legislature. Getting time off work for 120 days every other year is challenging enough.

In addition, Nevada government hasn’t reached the size and complexity to require an annual meeting of lawmakers, Raggio said. If a problem arises between regular sessions, it can be dealt with in a special session, he said.

Since the close of the 2003 Legislature, there have been seven special sessions. Three were convened since the 2007 Legislature.

The state budget shortfall brought on by the recession has required two special sessions to approve budget cuts of more than $1 billion.

Woodhouse said the even-year sessions would only deal with budget matters. Lawmakers would still pass biennium budgets during the odd-year sessions. The Legislature would convene the next year only to consider changes in the approved budget.

It would give lawmakers an up-to-date look at the state’s finances, Woodhouse said. And if there wasn’t work to do, lawmakers could adjourn before the 30 days were up.

“It’s a larger state, and the needs of the people escalate,” Woodhouse said.

The move to annual sessions would require passage of Woodhouse’s proposal in consecutive sessions of the Legislature, followed by voter approval.

If successful, the first budget session would be in 2014.

The Legislative Commission and the Interim Finance Committee were created to address matters requiring lawmakers’ approval between sessions, but their powers are limited. The Interim Finance Committee, composed of members of the Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, has an emergency fund of $20 million from which it allocates money to agencies that run short of cash.

Lawmakers have floated the proposal of annual sessions frequently over the years.

Some have argued the lone annual legislative session makes the case against it.

The Legislature in 1955 and 1957 had approved a constitutional amendment for annual sessions, and voters ratified it in 1958.

The 1960 session, which lasted 55 days, was called “infamous” by the late Gov. Grant Sawyer.

In an interview for his oral history, Sawyer said: “Not being satisfied with being restricted to things fiscal, the legislators broadened their interpretation of the law until they had what amounted to a regular session, staying in Carson City for God knows how long and passing every bill in the book.”

Sawyer, who had been a proponent of limited budget sessions in even-numbered years, added: “The public and I were so disgusted with this butchery that they soon repealed the law and there never has been another scheduled annual session ... which may be unfortunate.”

State Archivist Guy Rocha said assemblymen were “grandstanding” to score points with voters and move into the Senate in the upcoming 1960 election. Lawmakers also didn’t limit the length of the session or its topics.

“They left it wide open,” Rocha said. “They weren’t efficient, and they didn’t focus on the fiscal.”

After the 1960 session, a return to biennial Legislatures was approved by voters, 48,019 to 35,397.

Arguing the 1960 session is a reason for not having an annual session doesn’t hold water, Rocha said.

The state’s population was 285,278 in 1960; today it’s 2.5 million.

“The biennial system created in 1864 worked well enough for a state that was among the smallest in the union, and it worked in a world that wasn’t so globally tied, particularly in this digital era,” he said. “Nevada has to essentially come into the 21st century and recognize that if it doesn’t do annual sessions, it is always behind ... and there will be special sessions, more and more special sessions.”

According to the “Political History of Nevada,” a bill was introduced in every regular session from 1973 until 2003 calling for an annual session to consider budget issues. Each failed.

Asked about her chances for success, Woodhouse said, “I have to give it a try.”