Sandoval Budget Assumes 10 Percent Cut to State, Higher Ed and Furloughs (NV)

December 3, 2010

Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval is building a budget that assumes a 10 percent cutto state agencies, $175 million reduced from higher education, the extension offurloughs for state workers and rosier-than-expected projections for statespending on unemployment insurance and Medicaid.

& lt;p>That still leaves the state about $1.2 billion short of having a balancedbudget, after Wednesday’s projections of the Economic Forum. Sandoval’stransition team, working with state budget director Andrew Clinger, has askedagencies to come up with additional cuts as high as a total of 30 percent.

Earlier this year, the budget office under Gov. Jim Gibbons ordereddepartments to prepare budget scenarios with a 10 percent cut. Those plans,which would save the state about $820 million over two years, were released inOctober.

To save an additional $1.2 billion, there would need to be another 15percent of state spending, though budget director Andrew Clinger said anotherround of cuts would not be across the board. (Senior state personnel, speakingon the condition of anonymity because they’ve been asked to keep the numbersconfidential, have said they’ve been instructed to prepare for additional cutsby the budget office, which is now being run by the Sandoval transition team.)

Heidi Gansert, Sandoval’s future chief of staff, said some of the 10 percentcuts that have been proposed will not happen, including some proposed cuts thathave garnered protests from social service advocates.

In particular, she said that a proposed elimination of personal careattendants for the elderly and disabled would be restored.

The Las Vegas Sun highlighted those cutsin October.

Eliminating that program would have saved the state $55 million. And everycut deemed too severe will have to be replaced by a cut somewhere else.

“We’re revising the list to make sure that we’re protecting the mostvulnerable people,” Gansert said, declining to be specific.

Sandoval has until Jan. 24 to prepare his budget and state of the stateaddress. He has consistently promised not to raise taxes, despite skepticismfrom legislative leaders in both parties that he could reasonably balance thebudget without additional revenue.

Earlier budget office estimates had put the deficit number closer to $3billion, which conservatives attacked as being inflated to scare the publicinto agreeing to new taxes.

Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said Sandoval’s administration could not justmake assumptions about certain things being passed or cut. She criticized the10 percent number.

“This is clearly the spin coming from the governor’s office to minimize thebudget hole, so he can maintain his no new tax pledge and convince the publicthat the problem isn’t as big,” Leslie said.

Gansert said simply the $8.3 billion number is wrong.

“The numbers are the numbers,” she said.

Leslie acknowledged that employee furloughs or something similar, saving thestate $480 million over two years, would likely be extended though.

Higher education officials, who have so far refused to detail how they wouldcut their budgets, were not immediately available for comment on Thursday.

Sandoval senior adviser Dale Erquiaga said the administration was looking atall options, but was favoring structural changes.

“We have to put behind us the one-time solutions,” he said.

Sandoval’s senior staff have spent hours meeting with department heads overthe past few weeks to find places to cut.