Lawmakers want budget drafting powers equal to the governor's

CARSON CITY - A plan to give the Nevada Legislature a leg up in its biennial budget battles with the governor's office has won unanimous approval in a key Assembly committee.

SB71 would give the Legislature the power to draft a state budget - a function currently reserved solely for the executive branch of government.

"The formation of a state budget is clearly a legislative prerogative," Sen. Bill Raggio, the bill's author, told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee in urging the panel Wednesday to endorse SB71.

But most state legislatures have delegated their budget-drafting functions to the executive branch because governors' offices have the resources and expertise necessary to handle the job, he added.

"This bill would require the formulation of a separate legislative budget along the same lines and in the same format of the governor's executive budget," Raggio, R-Reno, said.

In drafting a proposal of their own, lawmakers would be building a rival budget framework and could rely on that in developing their own agenda.

Currently, that agenda-setting responsibility is the governor's, and so - not surprisingly - Gov. Kenny Guinn sent his senior policy analyst and a ranking budget official to argue against the bill.

"We cannot express strongly enough the concerns our office has with this erosion of the executive branch responsibility and authority," Guinn policy chief Denice Miller said.

The administration calls AB71 unnecessary, unconstitutional and a duplication of efforts.

"The legislature already reviews - thoroughly and often contentiously reviews - the executive budget. The final decision rests with you, as it has for 135 years," Miller said.

Don Hataway from the governor's budget office says the Legislature's budgetary powers are already significant.

He said lawmakers can revise the budget, and the governor is left with the options or signing it into law or vetoing it and sending it back.

"The checks and balances we have in place right now are sound and solid," Hataway said.

Officials also say that the Legislature already has a say in the budget process before the governor's proposal is delivered to lawmakers. Legislative fiscal staffers sit in on meetings between administration officials and agency heads so they at least know what the governor's budget priorities will be.

"But we're in a box until we have the budget in our hands," said Assemblyman John Marvel, R-Battle Mountain, adding that staffers can sit in on the process but aren't allowed to tell lawmakers about the details until the governor's budget is officially sent over.

While Hataway seemed amenable to a compromise allowing staffers to tell their legislative bosses what's discussed in budget development meetings, the governor's office still opposes the bill.

SB71 will pile more work onto executive-branch staffers in the new era of abbreviated, 120-day legislative sessions, Miller said.

"From your own experience on this committee, you know that time during a 120-day session is very short. Imagine if you were reviewing two budgets instead one," she said.

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