Budget is big focus as 16th week of session opens

CARSON CITY - Lawmakers will wrestle with budget issues - including a late-developing plan for a university dental school - as the 1999 Nevada Legislature starts its next-to-last full week on Monday.

Besides remaining budget issues, lawmakers by Friday have to complete Senate and Assembly floor action on most pending bills. That will include work on scores of amendments to those measures.

Also, throughout the week conference committees will be working out differences between Assembly and Senate versions of pending measures. All the work must be completed by May 31, when the 1999 session ends.

Budget sessions include a Monday meeting of Senate Finance on two charter school proposals. And Assembly Ways and Means reviews the state Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety.

There's no scheduled meeting on Sen. Ray Rawson's just-emerging plan to spend more than $22 million in Medicaid funds over the next two years on a dental school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas - but plenty of discussion is expected anyway.

The plan, which also includes bonding for a $34.2 million center at UNLV, has generated a lot of questions because a budget subcommittee endorsed the idea only last week without ever holding a hearing to get public comment.

Critics say a study should be done first, noting that's what was done for other big university projects such as its new law school.

But Rawson said he's pushing ahead, saying the school's use of Medicaid dollars would be proper because dentists-in-training would provide care to low-income people.

Also up for a lot of likely discussion is the proposed use of tobacco settlement funds for Gov. Kenny Guinn's "Millennium Scholarships." But, like the dental school plan, there's no posted meeting schedule.

In the same category - probable talks but no posted meetings - is Guinn's plan to privatize a state-run workers' compensation system. It's in the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee.

Hearings that are scheduled include a Monday meeting of the Senate Natural Resources Committee on wild horses.

Also, Assembly Education will discuss a proposed commission on school safety and juvenile violence - a proposal that emerged following the recent killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

And a select Senate-Assembly committee hearing on electric utility deregulation is set for Monday. The panel is expected to review a new draft of the plan, which has run into opposition in the Assembly after clearing the Senate.

On Tuesday, Senate Commerce and Labor opens the first day of four scheduled days of discussion on proposed reforms in Nevada's mortgage investment industry. The reforms have been prompted by big losses suffered by investors in a Las Vegas mortgage firm.

Another joint meeting of Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees is scheduled Tuesday to continue resolving budget differences.

And Assembly Government Affairs and Judiciary committees have work sessions scheduled.

On Wednesday, Assembly Elections, Procedures and Ethics plans a work session; and Assembly Natural Resources will review various measures dealing with public land issues and hazardous materials.

On Thursday and Friday, the only scheduled committee hearings are the sessions in Senate Commerce and Labor on regulating the mortgage industry. Committees began shutting down last week after Friday's deadline to move all bills to the floors. Some exceptions were granted, but many bills were relegated to the legislative trash heap.

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