Southern Nevada hit again to help bail out state

By Joe Schoenmann

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 | 2 a.m.

State lawmakers once again gave themselves permission to raid coffers in Clark County as they worked to balance Nevada’s budget in the waning hours of the special session.

The Legislature, as part of its $887 million package of fee hikes and spending cuts, approved taking up to $62 million from the Clean Water Coalition and another $25 million in capital funds from the Clark County School District.

Less than a year ago, during the 2009 regular session, state lawmakers enacted bills that Clark County officials claimed would cost them $180 million over two years.

“That money was collected for a specific project,” Commissioner Steve Sisolak said of the Clean Water Coalition funding. “The project never happened, so it should have gone back to the taxpayers who paid it. They have taken Southern Nevada money paid by Southern Nevada interests and are using it for a state purpose.”

While most of the coalition’s money came from developers and the gaming industry (see a complete list of connection fees here), large chunks also came from the School District and the county itself.

For example, from 2006-09, the School District paid $436,000 in such fees; $387,000 came from the Clark County Detention Center; McCarran International Airport paid about $600,000; and about $45,000 came from the Southwest Library. During the same period, casinos, resorts and hotels within Clark County’s jurisdiction paid connection fees totaling $10.9 million.

Only Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, opposed taking the funding.

“This thing is just bad for Clark County,” Coffin said. “They took all this money last session. And I voted for that. I hated it. I don’t feel good about it, and I wasn’t going to do it again, not at all, not for anything ...

“That money should have stayed in the county of origin. You either return it, or you spend it in the county of origin for things like social services.”

Coffin had said lawmakers justified targeting Southern Nevada because Clark County has continued to give its employees cost-of-living raises while state workers have had their pay cut 4.6 percent through furloughs. (The county employee pay increases were called for in collective bargaining agreements.)

The Clean Water Coalition was formed to build an $860 million pipeline that would improve water quality by returning treated wastewater deep into Lake Mead. However, the cities that formed the coalition — Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Clark County — decided in December that improved water treatment technologies would allow them to postpone the project indefinitely.

The coalition had not yet decided what to do with the money.

The latest state raid on local dollars prompted Sisolak to jokingly suggest Clark County adopt a new tax to be placed in a bank account for state lawmakers to draw upon every time they need to balance their budget.

Indeed, the special session was the latest chapter in a long story for Southern Nevada local governments. Because they lack home rule, cities and counties operate at the whim of the Legislature. The effects range from the tedious — getting permission from legislators on routine matters such as towing cars out of county parking lots and giving refunds at airport parking garages — to the taxing — hundreds of millions taken from local government coffers in the 2009 and special sessions.

The added insult, officials say, is that the pillaged local tax dollars are usually used to pay the expenses of the entire state.

After last year’s slash-and-burn regular session, a few lawmakers said it would have helped the county’s cause during the special session if commissioners had spent more time in Carson City talking with them.

Commissioner Larry Brown, who is also as chairman of the Clean Water Coalition, doubted that his presence in the Legislative Building would have changed the outcome.

“It’s their world. They communicate with people they want to communicate with,” he said, adding that no state legislator contacted him to say the coalition’s money were being targeted.

He criticized the move, saying the money was collected for the express purpose of building a pipeline and will now instead be used to balance the state budget.

Commissioner Tom Collins did talk with lawmakers about the water coalition. Although it didn’t stop them from taking that money, Collins thought the county benefitted from his presence by having to give up just $62 million this time around.

“I was brought into some meetings with the leadership of both houses, and realized that they didn’t want to hurt us,” he said, “they weren’t going after other agencies” besides the Clean Water Coalition.