Legislators last year were sold on a bill (SB 154) which established an advisory committee to study ways to raise taxes for new school construction in Washoe County. Those options would be narrowed down and put on the ballot this November for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down by voters. This was clearly an effort to raise taxes, but legislators bought into it and the governor, despite his tax pledge and out entreaties not to, signed the bill.
Lo and behold, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported yesterday morning that “After nearly seven months of discussion, the School Construction and Revitalization Advisory Committee (has) narrowed down possible (tax) increases for the Washoe County School district” to a hike in the sales tax, a hike in the modified business tax, a hike in the government services tax or a hike in the real property transfer tax…or some combination of the above.
It should also be noted that what the advisory committee and the school district did here would be illegal if they were selling their product in the open market. It would have violated any number of truth-in-labeling laws and laws against “bait-and-switch.” Because this tax hike effort was sold to legislators and the governor last year as absolutely, positively critical in order to build NEW schools to relieve pressure on existing schools where class sizes were reportedly bursting at the seams.
But once the tax-hike enabling bill was passed by the 2007 Legislature and signed by the governor, the folks pushing this measure changed gears and decided not to pursue the tax hike to build NEW schools, but to use the revenue from whatever tax hike they selected to fix, repair and upgrade OLD schools. As the RGJ reported on Tuesday, “In March, the group agreed to focus on renovations for existing schools instead of finding ways to fund new construction.”
I guess this means that classes are no longer overcrowded and the “crisis” has past, huh?
But even the notion of fixing and repairing old schools is suffering from a bad case of mission creep, as Reno High School Principal Bob Sullivan told the RGJ last week he hoped to use some of the hoped-for $393 million of money from the hoped-for tax hike to buy new classroom “interactive whiteboards.” Now, could someone please explain how we went from building critically needed brand new schools to buying absolutely unnecessary brand new “interactive whiteboards”?
I didn’t make a big deal out of the governor violating his no new taxes pledge last year because the technical violation on this bill was minimal in the large scheme of things. But it just goes to show what happens when you let your guard down for even a minute and allow the tax-happy big government crowd an opportunity to sell you a bag of goods.
Posted on April 17th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
Funding is authororized and legislative intent and committee minutes makeclear in SB 154 at Sec.10.2. (a) that funding is for purposes in NRS 387.335;
” NRS 387.335 Issuance of general obligations by board of trustees: Authorized purposes; combining questions for voting.
1. The board of trustees of a county school district may issue its general obligations to raise money for the following purposes, and no others:
(a) Construction, design or purchase of new buildings for schools, including, but not limited to, teacherages, dormitories, dining halls, gymnasiums and stadiums.
(b) Enlarging, remodeling or repairing existing buildings or grounds for schools, including, but not limited to, teacherages, dormitories, dining halls, gymnasiums and stadiums.
(c) Acquiring sites for building schools, or additional real property for necessary purposes related to schools, including, but not limited to, playgrounds, athletic fields and sites for stadiums.
(d) Paying expenses relating to the acquisition of school facilities which have been leased by a school district pursuant to NRS 393.080.
(e) Purchasing necessary furniture and equipment for schools. If money from the issuance of general obligations is used to purchase furniture and equipment to replace existing furniture and equipment, and that existing furniture and equipment subsequently is sold, the proceeds from the sale must be applied toward the retirement of those obligations.
2. Any one or more of the purposes enumerated in subsection 1 may, by order of the board of trustees entered in its minutes, be united and voted upon as one single proposition.
3. Any question submitted pursuant to this section and any question submitted pursuant to NRS 387.3285 may, by order of the board of trustees entered in its minutes, be united and voted upon as a single proposition.
[155:32:1956]—(NRS A 1971, 2119; 1975, 870; 1981, 961; 1985, 144; 1989, 681; 1997, 2455; 2001, 2333; 2003, 2136, 2137)
Besides, what are you afraid of, it’s a straight up and down vote!
Chuck;
Reflecting on this a bit more, I believe it is more insidious than you label it. It WAS an end-around the Constitution and ultimately it may be unlawful.
In the post above, I assumed that the committee minutes for SB 141 were instructive, and they are, in that there was a lack of constitutional sufficiency to advance the bill to the Assembly, and so, the whole of it was then attached to SB 154 (presumably because both had the words “transfer tax” in the language?).
The original bill (SB 141) to allow the use of transfer tax for capital improvements of Washoe schools (mostly for renovation) was not allowed to proceed from the Senate on April 25, 2007 because less than 2/3 of the senators voted in favor of the bill. This bill, sponsored by Raggio, Townsend, Mathews, Washington, Anderson, Marvel, Leslie, Bobzien, Gansert, and Smith was then added to SB 154 by Amendment No. 179 (Assemblymen Anderson, Leslie, Smith, Bobzien, Parnell) which mandated the eighty percent of tax revenue to go toward revitalization of Washoe schools. The amednment was not agreed to and it was finally replaced by Amendment No. CA 6, which removed the 80% requirement……..all senators voted “yea” on the Senate Floor.
Constitutionally, a bill can only allow for one issue-as is the case with an initiative. In this case, the bill (SB 154/BDR 32-712) was orignially intended to address real property transfer tax payments involving the transfer of land from a company’s LLC to another of thier controlled subsidiary LLCs. The original bill deals with NRS 375, however, the establishment of the Washoe County School Construction and Revitalization Committee is an NRS 387 issue.
Perhaps this Constitutional argument could be raised in a court of competent juridiction to enjoy a halt to further action?
So, why was a 2/3 majority unobtainable for SB 141 but achievable for SB 154 on June 3, 2007?