State budget requests due, expected to top $4 billion

CARSON CITY -- State agencies are scrambling today to put the finishing touches on their budget requests which are expected to total more than $4 billion.

State Budget Director Perry Comeaux said Friday is the deadline but he expects some agencies to submit their budgets late. It will take four to six weeks before his office has any idea of the total amount sought by agencies for 1999-2001.

The present general fund budget for 1997-99 is $3.2 billion. Comeaux says there won't be a lot of money available like there was two years ago therefore requests will have to be shaved.

Peter Morros, director of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, whose agency includes 1,000 employees, said, "We're going to be on time. We're just fine-tuning most of it.

"This keeps getting bigger and bigger each time," Morros said.

For the first time in recent years, the Nevada Supreme Court will be submitting its budget by the deadline.

"Scrambling is a good word," said Karen Kavanau, director of the administrative office of the courts, which prepares the budget.

While the Supreme Court may not have to present its budget for review by the deadline, it intends to follow other agencies. Kavanau said there will be a lot more detail in the office's budget this year.

Two years ago the court was accused of trying to hide pay raises in the budget, a charge denied by then Chief Justice Miriam Shearing, who blamed the former court administrator Don Mello.

The University and Community College System of Nevada and the public schools have already combined to ask for $2.3 billion for the coming two years. "It's a lot more than we have to spend," Comeaux said. "That would break the bank."

The university system is proposing that $881 million come from the state, an increase of 51 percent. And the state Board of Education approved a budget calling for 37 percent more spending.

A good deal of those increases are to take care the growing number of students.

This biennium, education received 53.5 percent of the general fund budget, which is financed by Nevada taxpayers. There are also agencies supported mostly by federal funds or by fees that are outside the general fund budget. Total spending in this biennium is about $6 billion.

Public safety, which includes the state prison system, gained 11 percent of the $3.2 billion budget during this biennium. Comeaux said the prison system could ask for a slightly higher share of the money pie because the inmate population is growing at a faster percentage rate than the state's overall population and inflation.

Comeaux won't know how much he has to spend for the coming two years until the Economic Forum, a group of five lay members, makes its prediction in December on tax collections for 1999-2001.

In this biennium, the forum's forecasts were too high and the tax collections are lower than expected. The first meeting of the forum to review the current funding situation is Aug. 27.

Even though the forum was off in its predictions, Comeaux said the members did a good job.

"Normally when you miss low, you tend to be optimistic. When you miss high, you tend to be conservative," the budget director said.

He expects the forum this time around to be more conservative in its projections of tax revenues.

Once the budgets are amassed, Comeaux's office will start analysing the proposals. He predicted some drastic cuts will have to be made. The agencies will then have a chance to carry their appeals to the new governor which will submit the budget to the Legislature next year.

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