Special Session Is Over

Not that I’ve been keeping particularly close attention to the state budget proceedings or anything, but I think it’s worth noting that the special session for the Nevada budget has ended.  Some of the highlights:

1. The RGJ’s coverage of the Special Session is abhorrent.  I’m not kidding - I’d expect the kind of spotty, poorly written coverage I’m seeing from them from the Sagebrush, not a professional newspaper.  If you want a fighting chance of figuring out what’s going on, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has an ongoing series, and the Nevada Appeal is doing a pretty solid job of covering the proceedings as well.
2. The 4% COLA for state employees has been maintained.  There was almost no political will to do anything about this, which wasn’t particularly surprising.
3. The Nevada State Prison lives on.  This is actually a little surprising, to be honest.  It’s definitely long in the tooth and in a relatively urban area, as compared to the facilities in Ely and Lovelock.  It looks like the Las Vegas representatives were concerned that the state was just going to start holding most of its prisoners in the south.
4. The biggest cut?  Textbooks - an idea generated to prevent cuts in teacher pay.  Clark County loves this idea, coincidentally, which is curious considering they need textbooks more than any other district in the state.
5. The casinos may finally get to avoid taxes on comped meals; the Nevada Senate failed to “clarify” their position on taxation of comped meals, which means this issue will almost certainly go back to the Nevada Supreme Court.  There was some chicanery on both sides of the aisle on this one; Titus’ attempted amendment on a possible gas tax holiday reminded me quite nicely why Gibbons ended up becoming governor.  Interestingly, if the federal government decides to hold a “gas tax holiday”, the state immediately jacks the state gas taxes up to make up the difference; Titus wanted to end that.  Considering the state of our roads at the moment, I’m going to go against her on this one, especially since a federal gas tax holiday would almost certainly mean less federal road funding in the future.
6. To the Review-Journal’s credit, they’re the one paper in the state to actually provide an itemized list of the changes in the state budget this year.  I’m generally not fond of our neighbors to the south, much less their news sources, but it’s either them or crap like this.

Anyways, there it is - the state is losing money and there have been some cuts.  Revenue projections indicate things are only going to get worse, which isn’t particularly surprising seeing as Nevada’s entire tax structure is based on property taxes (going down for obvious reasons) and sales taxes (i.e. tax the tourists - guess what high gas prices does to tourism spending?).  Of course, the lack of a state income tax is one of the big selling points to this place for a lot of people, and raising taxes during a recession is almost always a bad idea, so I’m certainly not going to advocate for that; that said, it may be time to get some of the uncertainty out of the state budget.  The trouble with its current structure is that, when times are good, the budget looks really good; when times are bad, the budget looks really bad.  Since it’s almost impossible to actually expect the legislature or the governor to put enough in the Rainy Day Fund to make up the difference, we may need to come up with other, more even revenue flows for the state so that state funding isn’t all over the map every year.  Doing that without a state income tax would require a bit of effort, to put it gently.

1 Comment

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  By Dave Hendricks, June 29, 2008 @ 5:06 pm

  Ah…the pending budget collapse of 2009, and 2010. It is going to be so priceless. As we watch every municipality do things like reducing the amount of full time firefighters, and replacing them with volunteers.

  Then we will be cutting police force sizes, and probably traffic cops will go first. Which means even less revenue for the local police departments. Which I’m okay with. See the the sooner we realize that Police have nothing to do with the crimerate. And stop sending some overpaid civil servants to drive around aimlessly just so they can get discounts at the doughnut shop the better.

  Suddenly PSAs airing about how Volunteering is patriotic; will be common place.

  Ah Flint Michigan here we come.

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