Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

The Governor’s Race:

Sandoval’s ‘return to 2007 spending’ would be a challenge

Gubernatorial debate

Ross Andreson / AP

Gubernatorial candidates Brian Sandoval, right, and Rory Reid debate Tuesday night at Great Basin College Theater in Elko. Insults were traded and reputations questioned in a feisty debate over the state’s budget crisis, political ambitions and job experience as early voting winds down and Election Day looms.

Gubernatorial debate

Gubernatorial candidates Brian Sandoval, right, and Rory Reid debate Tuesday night at Great Basin College Theater in Elko.  Insults were traded and reputations questioned in a feisty debate over the state's budget crisis, political ambitions and job experience as early voting winds down and Election Day looms. Launch slideshow »

Brian Sandoval, the Republican candidate for governor, used the final two debates of the campaign to accuse his opponent, Democrat Rory Reid, of not playing it straight with voters. The Clark County commissioner, Sandoval said, had promised to protect everyone — K-12, higher education, health and human services — while not raising taxes.

Nevadans need to hear tough truth about the budget, Sandoval said. However, the former federal judge who most polls show leading handily would not give even a fleeting glimpse of what he would cut from state government. Instead he described his budget plan as “a return to 2007 spending.”

It made a good sound bite. But that only served to underscore the wide and growing gap between the political rhetoric and policy reality.

Spending in fiscal 2007 was more than $3 billion. For the next two years, Sandoval says he expects the state to have $5.2 billion in revenue to spend. That’s an $800 million difference over two years.

And although the state has lost population in that time, the number of Nevadans depending on social services has risen dramatically.

In fiscal year 2007, for example, the state spent $433 million in general-fund money on Medicaid, serving an average of 177,000 people a month. In 2013, the Health and Human Services Department estimates 315,000 will come to the state for help, costing $595 million — after a 10 percent cut that includes eliminating home-health workers, dentures and hearing aids for seniors, among other cuts that some have called unpalatable.

Sandoval said he wants to keep Medicaid whole as much as possible. But to go back to 2007 spending levels while limiting Medicaid cuts to 10 percent would take an additional $320 million.

Reid, during Tuesday’s debate, accused Sandoval of wanting to use a “flux capacitor” — a reference to the “Back to the Future” movies — to go back in time.

Both Sandoval and Reid have vowed not to raise taxes.

Sandoval, after debating Reid on Wednesday morning on Sam Shad’s “Nevada Newsmakers,” would not commit to releasing details of his cuts before Election Day.

“It’s going to be a shared responsibility toward reductions in the state,” he said. “We’re reviewing the budget right now. It’s important to get facts first.”

He said he wanted to talk to department heads.

Spending has increased rapidly, while growth in many areas — including K-12 enrollment and inmate populations — has been flat or gone down.

Sandoval has been fond of criticizing Reid’s spending plan, saying he will be laughed out of the Legislature. Meanwhile, leading participants in the upcoming 2011 session are unsure of what Sandoval’s budget proposal will look like.

Dan Klaich, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, said Reid has publicly signaled he would not cut higher education further, although he would continue employee furloughs.

Chancellor Dan Klaich

Chancellor Dan Klaich

Sheila Leslie

Sheila Leslie

Sandoval has been less specific, he said. “I have not gotten any specific indication of his budget plan beyond public comments.”

Klaich added, “I actually take some heart in his comments ... that his target level for expenditures is 2007.” General-fund spending on higher education has decreased since 2007, from $597 million to $558 million this year, he added.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said of Sandoval’s 2007 spending plan, “This is just saying you’re going to cut without being specific.”

To be sure, many state government watchers have criticized both candidates’ budget plans. Leslie chastised Reid for assuming hundreds of millions of dollars in efficiencies and an improved economy.

“These plans are not going to hold up under the hard light of budget reality,” she said. “Everyone knows that. It’s just campaign rhetoric. Frankly, the state deserves better from both of them.”

But with days left before the election, Sandoval has put nothing in writing other than a two-page news release issued late Tuesday.

Jon Sasser, a statewide advocate for social services, challenged both to come forward with an up or down on 10 percent cuts agencies released this month — including eliminating personal aides for the disabled, property tax assistance for seniors, closing museums and prisons, and ending autism treatment.

“As I understand it, Rory Reid’s plan is that the economy will grow like crazy. Brian Sandoval’s under the misconception that state needs have not grown since 2007. I’m dubious of both claims,” he said.

Assemblywoman Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, whose name has come up as a possible member of a Sandoval administration, said she thinks Sandoval “will do as much as he can to make health and human services” — purveyor of state social services — “whole.”

She said 2007 spending would be a baseline year.

The Legislature, she said, has “been using Band-Aids to fix the budget. Nobody expected the economic downturn to last as long as it had.”

Jeremy Aguero, principal at financial firm Applied Analysis, said it was “fair and reasonable” to return to 2007 budgets as a starting point.

But some costs can’t be rolled back, he said.

“You can’t turn back the cost of energy and health care, unemployment, those types of things.”

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