No accord on higher education budget

CARSON CITY -- After hours of closed-door meetings, frustrated legislators called it a night Monday, having failed to reach accord on the higher education budget.

Democrats in the state Assembly and Republicans in both houses agree on a plan to cut higher education by 13 percent, but Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, wants a cut of just 12 percent, according to Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno.

That disagreement amounts to just $14 million out of the multibillion-dollar budget, she said.

"Steven Horsford has drawn a line in the sand," Leslie said. In the group of a dozen key lawmakers negotiating the matter, "the majority of people have come to conclude that 13 percent is as far as we can stretch on the revenue side."

Horsford said the amount in dispute was "silly" but that his priority is protecting education and he has gone as far as he is willing to go.

Lawmakers don't want to allow the 36 percent cut to higher education proposed by Gov. Jim Gibbons, but "some of the cuts we would be forced to make without consensus (on a lower percentage) would be just as bad," Horsford said. "At some point you've got to draw the line, and for me it's been education."

The negotiations on higher education began Friday and were scheduled to pick up again this morning. Two scheduled meetings to finalize the budget already have been called off.

Legislators believe they must get a budget to Gibbons by May 21 in order to have enough time to override an expected veto by the time the session ends June 2.

Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said the issue is not only higher education but the picture of the budget as a whole that will emerge once higher education falls into place.

"We are working together and trying to be supportive, but there are limits to what any one caucus is going to be able to support," he said.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.