Mining tax plan fails by one vote

Bill not enough for budget hole

CARSON CITY — An attempt by Democrats to raise taxes on the state’s long-dominant mining industry by cutting out billions of dollars in business deductions fell one vote short of passing in the state Senate early Friday morning.

The outcome was largely foreseen, given the partisan disagreement over spending that marred the end of the 2019 session and has not abated during the special session called by Gov. Steve Sisolak to repair a $1.2 billion budget hole caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The result, however, gave rise to questions over Democratic strategy in pushing a bill that required a twothirds vote in both houses, when the party lacks that supermajority in the Senate.

The proposal, which was introduced at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Assembly, would have put a 60 percent cap on deductions afforded to mining companies. The Assembly took testimony, pushed through an amendment and passed the amended bill on a party-line vote about 10:45 p.m. The vote was 29-13. The Senate vote later was 13-8.

The original bill would have generated about

$54.7 million, legislative fiscal analyst Russell Guindon told lawmakers during the evening hearing. As first written, the bill would also have repealed parts of Senate Bill 3, which lawmakers passed a day before, that would have made mining companies prepay their taxes a year in advance. That would generate roughly $54.5 million for the current

fiscal year, leaving a $200,000 difference between the two measures.

But combined with the prepayment requirement, the amended bill would add “close to $100 million” to the budget in this fiscal year, Guindon said.

“We have been exploring different ways to fill some gaps and we have remained open for nine days for suggestions,” Speaker Jason Frierson said at an 11:30 p.m. press briefing. “Before we started, we were talking and trying to come up with ways to fit our communities’ needs, and so this is where we landed. … We have to act on behalf of our constituency and we decided to just go forward.”

Political hurdles

Because it would increase state revenue, the measure required a two-thirds majority to pass in both houses. The Assembly was able to muster more than a two-thirds vote, but the 13-8 party-line outcome in the Senate fell one vote short of the same.

“I think the point is that we are all

in a pretty dire situation in terms of the state and our economy and I think it’s about time that we have everybody step up,” Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-las Vegas, told reporters Thursday night.

“When there are times where we know that folks can pay some and we can restore services and we can talk about things like investing in education,” she added.

Senate Minority Leader James Settelmeyer, R-minden, criticized Democrats for rolling it out in the evening hours on what could be the final day of the special session.

Settelmeyer said, “$1.2 billion budget shortfall and they’re going for $60 million? Last day of session? Seems like a political stunt to bring something like this on Day 9.”

As the Assembly Democrats’ bill became public late Thursday afternoon, Senate Republicans unveiled their own proposal for closing the state’s budget gap using existing money in the state budget.

The plan draws a total of

$162 million in various reserves and additional federal funding from Medicaid to restore $115 million to health and human services programs and $43 million to the

K-12 schools budget.

Their proposal promises to restore threatened optional Medicaid services as well as most of the proposed rate cuts to Medicaid providers, along with mental health and programs for developmentally disabled people. The biggest impact in the K-12 budget would restore the Read by 3 program.

Settelmeyer said in a statement the proposal “is an effort to minimize that damage and protect both education and our social safety net.”

Sisolak open to taxes

Gov. Steve Sisolak said last week he would sign on to a new tax to help the state out of the revenue hole caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but he left it up to the Legislature to propose a plan. If passed by the Legislature and signed by Sisolak, new tax revenue would help the state stave off potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to education and health care programs.

The tax measure was introduced on the ninth day of the special session, as lawmakers also took up bills to create furloughs for state workers and cut some $536 million from state agencies.