State unfair on spending — details to follow

By Joe Schoenmann

Monday, March 2, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Taxpayers in Clark County contribute more to the state than they get back from it in services, say county officials girding for a fight with the revenue-starved state government.

Led by Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, county staff is working up an analysis to detail the imbalance. The purpose is to show that the rest of Nevada lives at Clark County’s expense, an argument county officials hope will deflect a run on the county treasury by state legislators who believe the county has “more money than God,” Giunchigliani said.

“I don’t know if it is something that could be used this session to change tax formulas,” she added.

The formula she referred to is one hammered out during a “fair-share blood battle,” as she calls it, in the Legislature in 1991. That’s when lawmakers agreed to new tax formulas after learning that Washoe County received $18 million more back from the state than it generated in taxes.

Most of those extra tax dollars came from Clark County.

Fiscal analyst Guy Hobbs, who was Clark County’s fiscal chief at the time, said the intention was to narrow the gap between the number of dollars a county put into state coffers and the number it gets back.

As part of that complex tax recipe, legislators built in a “rural guarantee.” In essence, this assured an annual subsidy for rural counties, which did not have the vibrant economies of the urban counties.

At the time, no one foresaw the kind of economic tumble experienced here and across the country.

“There wasn’t a clear crystal ball,” Hobbs said.

Now that sales tax revenue is down, Clark County is feeling the pinch, but the rural counties are getting their guaranteed amounts.

Clark County officials aren’t sure about the size of the current imbalance or how much the rural guarantee is hurting the county. They have called for the analysis before deciding whether to push the issue in Carson City, where Gov. Jim Gibbons has proposed taking 4 cents from each $100 of property tax revenue in Clark and Washoe counties to help close the state’s yawning budget gap.

Carole Vilardo, lobbyist for the Nevada Taxpayers Association, sounded exasperated when told of unhappiness over the “fair share” system, which she supported in the early 1990s.

“They’re not opening that up again, are they?” she said.

Vilardo said every locality in the state believes it is being treated unfairly. “Everybody, and I mean everybody, thinks they are getting shortchanged, so it’s like, nyah nyah, nyah-nyah nyah.”

Even so, Vilardo said the county’s tactic could work “because maybe then they could say taking that 4 cents is totally unfair.”

Giunchigliani, who served in the state Assembly 16 years, admits it is probably too late for any bills to be introduced that might change the funding formula. The Legislature adjourns in June.

“Right now, it’s more of a defensive move,” she said.

Concrete use of the analysis might come in the Legislature “two years down the road, if things remain this bad.”

“It’s good to get it to the Legislature now, as preparation for the next session,” in 2011.

She said the study would likely take a week or more to complete, and be ready for review by the Clark County Commission in mid-March.