Thursday, May 15, 2003 | 11:33 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Gov. Kenny Guinn said Wednesday that state government will shut down if lawmakers don't approve budget and tax plans by June 30.
And with Guinn saying least a hand-shake deal is needed by Friday to bring the Legislature to adjournment on June 2, one high-ranking Republican official said privately he thought the chance for a special session was at 80 percent.
"The wire is getting pretty thin," Guinn said in an interview. "We will know Friday."
But legislators may not reach an agreement by Friday. A core group of lawmakers that was supposed to meet Monday and Wednesday to hash out a budget number and how to fund it wound up canceling both those meetings.
If an agreement is not reached soon, lawyers will not have time to examine the drafting language and allow the state to print the large bill, Guinn said. In addition, he said, the lawmakers who are not a part of the core compromise negotiations will not have time to read the measure before adjourning June 2.
If no budget or plan to fund it is approved and Guinn convenes a special session, he said the work would have to be completed by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
"If not, we would have two choices," Guinn said. "The state government will either shut down or we could invoke some type of extension like they do in Washington, D.C. But I don't think anyone wants to do that."
Guinn said that's not a threat, but he's simply stating the facts as he sees them.
Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said that while Guinn's call for an agreement by Friday is "a good goal," he thinks an agreement Monday could still come in enough time to get a budget and tax plan out by midnight June 2.
"There are a couple of days beyond Friday that if we at least have something fairly solid we can get moving on it," Perkins said. "Right now, I'm waiting for the other folks from the joint Republican caucuses to make a decision before we can begin to try to hammer out the differences between the houses."
The Legislative Building is awash in rumors as the closed-door negotiations continue and little solid information emerges.
Some type of major tax similar to the gross receipts plan -- something being called a total revenue plan -- is being bandied about to try to win support. Few details have emerged and business leaders are scrambling to learn what it could mean to big businesses.
Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, who opposes the proposed one quarter of 1 percent tax on business gross receipts over $450,000, said he has not been privy to information about the total revenue tax.
Hettrick said he thinks key legislative negotiators are simply trying to save face with the gaming industry's call for a tax on big business at the same time they keep true to promises.
Perkins, for example, has repeatedly said a tax package will not pass the Assembly unless it contains a broad-based business tax.
"They want to do something else (besides the gross receipts) so they can say they did a broad-based business tax," Hettrick said.
Hettrick also said he is also not convinced the total budget number being negotiated is going to help the state's fiscal crisis.
"If we end up with a number of $800 million and pass $800 million in taxes, we'll still have a big problem when we come back here next session," Hettrick said.
He said lawmakers are building huge holes in the budget, like one created when lawmakers decided to make up for estate tax funds that education programs lose. A state guarantee of money that is drying up will simply "build holes" for the future, Hettrick said.
The difficulty in consensus building among just 13 leaders shows how hard it will be to win support from two-thirds majority in each house -- 27 in the Assembly and 13 in the Senate.
Whatever passes, Guinn said this morning that it better not include a sales tax on services. He said he "absolutely will not sign into law" a tax bill that relies on such a tax.
"That's the one tax I will not sign," Guinn said.
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