Budget deadline slips

CARSON CITY -- Nevada lawmakers missed a Thursday deadline for resolving differences in the nearly $7 billion state budget as leaders continued their closed-door budget negotiations.

Assembly and Senate leaders reached an agreement on a pay package for unclassified state workers. But there was no discussion of a more pressing matter, the $2.3 billion budget for Nevada's K-12 schools. Under a new voter mandate, that's supposed to be approved by the full Legislature before anything else.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said after the meeting that she remains optimistic about resolving the K-12 plan, possibly by the weekend, so that a special session can be avoided. Lawmakers must adjourn their regular session by June 4.

"It could be tomorrow. Definitely we're meeting Saturday and having floor sessions. So we're moving," Buckley said.

But she added that legislators are just about out of time on the K-12 decision because the mechanical process of finalizing that budget followed by completion of other major budget elements takes several days.

Buckley declined to comment on the exact cause of the K-12 stalemate that has the negotiators less than $20 million apart on the education spending plan, less than 1 percent of the total. Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, also declined to comment.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, and the Assembly's majority whip, Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, R-Reno, have said the differences are more philosophical than fiscal, with Republicans balking at the Democrats' efforts to put more funding into various innovative programs.

Titus added that a long-standing dispute over funding for all-day kindergarten was resolved, with a compromise that expands an existing pilot project but doesn't set up such classes in all schools. She didn't elaborate.

The Democratic lawmakers also have said the Republican negotiators continue to try to talk about budget elements outside education, despite the Education First voter mandate pushed by Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons.

The mandate forces lawmakers to approve public education funding before they can appropriate funds for transportation, social services, public safety or any other state entity.