Final week of 1999 XGR will be a full one

CARSON CITY - Nevada lawmakers open the final full week of the 1999 session Monday with a long list of differences between the Assembly and Senate that must be resolved in order to adjourn by May 31.

The wrap-up follows a long, six-day workweek that included a Saturday split between work in the morning and a Senate-Assembly baseball game in the afternoon.

"We look pretty good," Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, said Saturday in discussing the last week. "The big thing is going to be the conference committees."

"Of course, the money committees will be working all week," added Dini.

Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means have more than 200 bills between them to be passed or buried before adjournment.

And floor sessions are likely to take up a lot of time as the legislators take final votes on scores of measures emerging from the money panels and from the conferences. Those bills include a compromise on privatization of the state's industrial insurance system.

The conference committees, meeting all week whenever possible, are made up of a few representatives of either house who try to match up Senate and Assembly versions of bills. If they don't succeed, the measures die.

Proposals in conferences include a "Sherrice Iverson bill" requiring people to promptly call police when they see a child being hurt.

Other bills being handled by Senate-Assembly conferees deal with child support, mobile home parks and small claims court, among others.

There's another pile of legislation on clerks' desks in either house, including a proposal for a legislative budget that would mirror the one the governor sends to lawmakers.

Other proposals on the clerks' desks deal with impact fees, child restraints in vehicles, boating safety, parimutuel betting, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, legislative oversight of a governor's appointments, Las Vegas air quality programs, high school sports awards, and a plan for a corporate state bank.

Monday's committee hearings include Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means on the mountain of measures that both panels still have - more than 140 in Ways and Means and 80 in Finance.

Senate Finance Chairman Bill Raggio, R-Reno, also has asked for a report Monday on how the big budget bills are coming. By late in the week, lawmakers must have final, printed versions of the $3.2 billion spending plan for the next two years.

A special panel reviewing a plan to deregulate Nevada's electric utility industry also meets on Monday.

Assembly Judiciary will consider a new bill dealing with use of fluoride in the Las Vegas-area water supply. The plan ensures that the fluoridation requirement doesn't apply in the Reno area.

And Senate Human Resources and Facilities considers bills dealing with warning labels on steroids and teachers for deaf children.

On Tuesday, Senate Commerce and Labor considers a controversial bill regulating Nevada mortgage companies. The measure was prompted by big losses suffered by investors in a Las Vegas mortgage firm.

Also Tuesday, Senate Judiciary considers a proposed constitutional amendment to create an intermediate appeals court between the Nevada's district courts and the state Supreme Court.

And Assembly Taxation considers a plan to cap annual increases in taxable value on property at 2 percent or the inflation rate, whichever is less. In addition to limiting increases, the proposed amendment to the Nevada Constitution would roll back Nevada's property tax rate to mid-1990 levels.

Nothing was posted as of late Saturday for committees for the rest of the week, but there will be plenty going on in conference meetings and hastily convened committee hearings as the legislators try to conclude the session on the weekend.

The 1999 session must adjourn by Monday, the 120th day. That length was mandated by voters last year.

Even if it takes until Monday, the session will be Nevada's shortest since 1977, when lawmakers took 113 days to complete their work.

But legislative leaders have said there might be a way to shave a day or two off the length.

"If we get done one day early, that's great," said Dini. "It saves the taxpayers money - and I think the members are all ready to go home and get back to work."

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