Gibbons' spending plan costs Carson

Gov. Jim Gibbons' state budget proposal could cost Carson City between $400,000 and $500,000 a year, according to the city.

Carson City would have to contribute to a county indigent medical care fund and pay more for the state to collect the city's sales taxes under the plan, Mayor Bob Crowell said.

The state would charge the city $460,000 a year in property taxes for the medical care. It also could increase the sales tax collection fee 1 percent, costing the city about $196,000 a year.

Gibbons suggests the fees in his executive budget in brief posted at www.nevadaspend

ing.com.

"Despite a projected shortfall of over $2 billion for the biennium, the restructuring of existing programs to provide greatly enhanced operation efficiency will allow the executive budget to be balanced with a 6 percent reduction in salaries and minimal layoffs," he writes in the executive budget.

The city would gain about $200,000 under the plan. The governor would cut the city's required payment to the state public employee retirement program from about $400,000 a year to about $200,000 a year.

These fee increases and required payment cuts would also affect Lyon, Storey and Douglas counties.

Crowell said he wants the city to help if it can, but the state should know the city's needs.

"Everyone is in a tight place and it's one proposal out there," he said.

The plan also could change a lot when the legislature meets next month to look at the state's budget issues, he said.

Gibbons presented the budget proposal last week. Other ideas in the plan that would hit the Carson City area include a 6 percent pay cut for state employees, a 38 percent cut in state funds to Western Nevada College, closing the Nevada State Prison and closing the Comstock History Center in Virginia City.

Carson City Finance Director Nick Providenti said the costs of the plan would be hard on a city that already has made major cuts to deal with an expected $3 million budget shortfall this fiscal year.

"There's pretty much at this point not much left to do," he said.

The city has frozen job positions, delayed public works projects and made plans to use its reserves to get it through the next few years if the economy stays slow.

An added half-million dollars to pay "wouldn't kill us," Providenti said, but that is the cost of five or six full time employees.

The city might be able to handle the costs by combining some programs or using reserves for a short time, he said.

- Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.