Governor Gibbons Wants to Raid Local Coffers

If you've been following my budget stories, you know local governments in Washoe County are having to accommodate revenue shortfalls with millions of dollars in budget cuts. The current session of the Nevada State Legislature is similarly challenged. The difference is that they are looking for ways to deal with billions instead of mere millions. Now, along comes Governor "No New Taxes" Gibbons with a proposal to snag $80 million from local governments' property tax revenue. That piece of the pie is already shrinking (think plummeting home values), so a bite by the state would compound an already ugly situation faced by locals. Take it out of employee salaries like I'm proposing to do with state workers (a 6% cut), says Gibbons, so I can doggedly cling to my no new taxes stand while Nevada sinks ever closer to becoming the first third-world state in America. By the way, Gibbons is also after Clark County, Nevada's most populous region.

Gibbons' reasoning is that county workers make more than state workers doing equivalent jobs, so they should also face the salary cutting axe. Then just send that extra money to the state to help balance the budget and avoid any new taxes. That's great, unless you happend to be a local offical who has been slashing expenditures, cutting salaries, and laying off workers since the middle of 2008, and you were not aware of this proposal until you were in Carson City to testify against diverting even more of the property tax pie to the state. Northern Nevada representatives who were present include Washoe County Commission Chairman David Humke, County Manager Katy Simon, and Reno Mayor Bob Cashell.

This can't happen just because the governor says so. It requires a specific bill, and with Nevada's Democrats controlling the legislature, it's probably not going to happen. At least that's what Senator Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, had to say as chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee. Still, the idea is out there and we won't know for sure until legislators and the governor come to agreement on how to cope with Nevada's $2.3 billion budget problem.

What do you think? Should the state be able to take more property tax revenue from the counties?

Source: Reno Gazette-Journal.

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