Nevada Families Eagle Forum
Inside View of the Nevada Legislature Special Session
Governor Jim Gibbons called a Special Session of the Nevada Legislature on June 27, 2008 in Carson City to deal with Nevada’s budget crisis. I attended the session. While I listened to the deliberations all day… and witnessed the votes on the final budget cuts that night… None of the discussions answered or even addressed the unspoken question. What if…the economy continues to decline and we have to make more budget cuts…
Now just weeks later, the governor has just announced that the revenues from gaming were “significantly worse than projected by the Economic Forum a mere three weeks ago.” In fact they were down $19 million. The Reno Gazette Journal reported on June 11, 2008 that, “May was the seventh straight month of gaming tax decline, just less than $64 million and down 22.8 percent from a year ago and almost 19.5 percent below projections by the June 2008 Economic Forum.” (See explanation of the Economic forum at the end of this article).
The Economic Forum’s Report is what led the Governor to call the Special Session to deal with the projected budget shortfall. At that time the Legislative Counsel Bureau’s Fiscal Division had a more optimistic report than the Economic Forum…And the Economic Forum was not just a little bit wrong, but 19.5 percent too high.
All during the Session, as the Legislators were weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth about cutting the budget, there was never any official or even unofficial recognition that they may have to cut more. The possibility was never mentioned! They just kept promising that all of these cuts would be restored during the 2009 Legislature.
In particular, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley made her plans very clear when she said from the Speakers podium, “This will never happen again.” She plans to force a change in the tax structure in Nevada so that it is “stable.” In other words, so the taxes don’t decrease during an economic downturn. That’s amazingly arrogant! That means while all of us suffer the effects of an economic downturn that government should never have to tighten its belt. It also means that the state should depend more on property taxes, which tend to be more stable instead of things like gaming and sales taxes, which are more subject to downturns in the economy.
We all need to thank Governor Jim Gibbons for giving the Legislature a No Tax Increase mandate. Call: 775-684-5670 or 702-486-2500. Repeatedly, the Governor was bad-mouthed by big spending Legislators for refusing to raise taxes. One Assemblyman, during the discussions on the floor of the Assembly, denounced the governor as the 500-pound gorilla next door. Aren’t we glad that that gorilla next door is protecting us from the Big Tax and Spending vultures at the Legislature!
One tell-tale incident at the Special Session was the discussion about reducing by 50% to $47,995,714, the “Textbook, Instructional Supplies, and Instruction Hardware” budget. The School Districts represented by the Washoe County Superintendent asked the Legislature to make this cut rather than freeze the 4% salary increases. This should bring to your mind how really bloated this particular budget must have been to cut it by
50% without any howling. That means that there is still $47,995,714 budget to buy new textbooks for 433,885
K-12 students throughout the state, that’s $110.61 per student. Of course, the schools already have many
textbooks which they will be using again this year. I wonder how many other bloated budgets this budget crisis will expose?
The Governor and the Nevada Legislature have already been forced to cut the budget by $1.2 BILLION. And even after these cuts, according to the Governor, the “state will close out the fiscal year $14.7 million below projections for gaming tax collections.”
The Legislature at the Special Session was not willing to even mention that there might be additional budget shortfalls, when 7 months in a row tax revenues when down. I consider that to be completely irresponsible! Just three weeks later the reality is setting in with gaming tax revenues going down by 19.5% more than projections.
There will be a huge battle during the next Legislative Session starting in February 2, 2008 on raising taxes to meet these increasing shortfalls. Be sure you know you are voting for Legislators who are committed Not to Raise Taxes or Fees. Janine Hansen, State President, Nevada Eagle Forum