LAS VEGAS: Nevada legislators convene today
for their second special session in three weeks to try to pass
massive tax increases by Monday in an Old West showdown that pits
the needs created by the state's explosive growth against its
storied antitax, small-government history.
If the Legislature can't agree to raise $869 million in new
revenue, it also won't be able to pass an education budget,
which means the country's fastest-growing school district will
be unable to hire the new teachers it needs to keep up with
its student population.
Yet even with that danger imminent, few are optimistic this
go-around will solve anything more than the 120-day regular
session earlier this year or the 10-day special session earlier
this month. That could mean a summer of more fruitless sessions,
cuts in services, and the kind of bad publicity that might spoil
state efforts to lure companies to settle here.
In a year of budget crises across the country, Nevada's is
shaping up to be among the most dire and most intractable.
''Everybody is so polarized, nobody is getting closer to any
resolution,'' said Joyce Haldemann, executive director of community
and government relations for the Clark County School District,
which includes Las Vegas. ''We have no idea if this will be
resolved on June 30 or Dec. 30.''
In a twist, this dispute is largely an all-Republican affair,
pitting Governor Kenny Guinn, who champions the largest tax
increase in state history, against a pack of GOP legislators
who'd rather pass no budget at all than one that increases state
spending by 35 percent.
Guinn and others believe the state must alter its current
tax structure, which relies overwhelmingly on revenues from
gambling and tourism taxes, or face fiscal disaster in the event
of another economic downturn.
At the same time, Nevada's astonishing population growth --
66.3 percent in the 1990s, according to the 2000 Census -- has
led most lawmakers to agree to dramatic spending increases.
Nevada, which is in the top 10 nationally in per capita wealth,
spends $1,000 less per pupil than the average US state and ranks
at the bottom in most measures of student performance and funding
for the poor. The last statewide tax increase was approved in
1991.
Decades ago, signs welcoming motorists to the state included
the list of taxes that did not exist here. Many of the thousands
who now move here each month are lured by the lack of a state
income tax.
Thus, a core group of traditionalists in the state Assembly
view Guinn's support of the large spending increases and new
taxes that burden non-gaming businesses as a betrayal of both
Republican and Nevada values. Their rebellion has even involved
open mockery of Guinn, with one Republican filing a facetious
bill early in the regular session proposing to change the state's
name to ''East California,'' the state's official song to The
Beatles' ''Taxman,'' and the state animal to the RINO, or ''Republican
In Name Only.''
''Citizens have no tolerance right now for general-purpose
tax hikes,'' said Assemblyman Bob Beers of Las Vegas, a Republican
who leads an antitax group in the Legislature's lower body.
''They might pass a tax hike if it were earmarked for something
important, but they're in no mood to brook rampant hyperexpansion
of government at a time when the civilian economy is pinched
by the effects of terrorism.''
The Legislature already approved $3.8 billion in spending
during its regular session, an amount that can be covered by
the existing tax rates. Democrats who run the Assembly opted
to require that the $1.2 billion schools budget be passed in
tandem with any tax hikes that are needed to cover the increase
in the overall budget. That manuever now has the education budget
in limbo along with the tax plans.
Beers's small faction can stall tax increases and the education
budget because state law requires two-thirds of both houses
to vote for new taxes. The tax opponents want to force Guinn
to reopen and cut parts of the $3.8 billion already approved,
or Assembly Democrats to allow separate votes on the education
budget and the tax increases. The governor and Assembly leadership
have rejected both demands.
Clark County school officials are making plans to cope with
the prospect of going through the summer without the money to
make offers to prospective teachers. Superintendent Carlos Garcia
announced he will eliminate reading programs and initiatives
for gifted students and force about 400 teaching specialists
to become classroom insructors instead.
That helps, but doesn't quite account for the 1,600 new teachers
the nation's sixth-largest school district needs to cover the
12 new schools that will open in August.
''Everybody blames somebody else,'' Haldemann said. ''Everyone
has dug their heels in, and meanwhile the school districts are
the wailing baby in the background. We don't care what formula
we have to feed us. Just make sure we're fed.''
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