MINUTES OF MEETING

      ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS

 

      Sixty-seventh Session

      May 20, 1993

 

 

 

The Assembly Committee on Government Affairs was called to order by Chairman Val Z. Garner at 8:06 a.m. Thursday, May 20, 1993, in Room 330 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada.  Exhibit A is the Meeting Agenda.  Exhibit B is the Attendance Roster.

 

 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

      Mr. Val Z. Garner, Chairman

      Mr. Rick C. Bennett, Vice Chairman

      Mrs. Kathy M. Augustine

      Mr. Douglas A. Bache

      Mrs. Marcia de Braga

      Mr. Pete Ernaut

      Mrs. Vivian L. Freeman

      Mr. Lynn Hettrick

      Mrs. Erin Kenny

      Mrs. Joan A. Lambert

      Mr. James W. McGaughey

      Mr. Roy Neighbors

      Mrs. Gene W. Segerblom

 

 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:

 

      Mr. Wendell P. Williams, Excused.

 

GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:

 

      Senator Lawrence Jacobsen, Western Nevada Senatorial District.

 

STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

      Mrs. Dana Bennett, Senior Research Analyst

 

OTHERS PRESENT:

 

      Mr. John Pappageorge, Clark County; Mr. Jim Hawke, Director of Division of Emergency Management (DEM); Mr. George Pyne, Public Employees Retirement System; Ms. Virginia Valentine, Chief Engineer and General Manager of Clark County Regional Flood Control District.

 

 

ASSEMBLY CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 55 - Urges local governments to continue water conservation efforts.

 

Chairman Garner indicated as there was no testimony in opposition to ACR 55 he would entertain a motion to adopt.

 

      ASSEMBLYMAN HETTRICK MOVED TO ADOPT A.C.R. 55.

 

      ASSEMBLYMAN de BRAGA SECONDED THE MOTION.

 

      THE MOTION CARRIED.  Assemblymen Bache, Ernaut, McGaughey, Neighbors, and Williams were not present for the vote.

 

Chairman Garner indicated he would handle ACR 55 on the floor.

 

ASSEMBLY BILL 623 - Authorizes state emergency response commission to adopt regulations which regulate division of emergency management of department of military.

 

Senator Jacobsen, Western Nevada Senatorial District, testified in support of AB 623 indicating he had started with emergency management as a governor appointee from its inception and had also served on the local emergency response commission.  He felt a lot had been accomplished and fully supported the bill.

 

Mr. John Pappageorge, Clark County, stated Karen Larsen, the co-chairman of the State Emergency Response Commission committee (SERC) had not been notified AB 623 was being heard and was not present to testify.  He indicated support of the bill and felt it was important for the SERC committee to maintain its current status and ability to operate within the state, and AB 623 assured its existence.  He said the governor's budget had no funding for the SERC committee and this legislation would guarantee its existence.  The money collected would be properly distributed back to the communities for the proper training of fire fighters and other related groups on hazardous materials.

 

Chairman Garner stated it was his understanding SERC was a self-supporting entity and received its funds through dump fees, SERC fees and grant fees, and there was no general fund money supporting it.

 

Mr. Pappageorge said that was correct.

 

Mr. Jim Hawke, Director of Division of Emergency Management (DEM), testifying in opposition to AB 623 gave an overview of SERC and Division of Emergency Management (DEM) and their relationship with each other.

 

Chairman Garner asked what responsibilities DEM and SERC had.

 

Mr. Hawke replied DEM handled earthquake preparedness, hazardous materials, floodplain preparedness, population protection, radiological incidences and emergency communications.  Regarding SERC, he said, "SERCs role is very narrowly defined, in my view.  SERC was created in response to a federal mandate called SERA Title III community right to know hazardous chemicals.  It relates to hazardous materials, specifically hazardous chemicals.  As it was first set up it was designed to get money from the Beatty site...  They have worked with industry very effectively, this committee has, to get funds from the industry and permit fees, transportation fees, storage handling, etc."  Mr. Hawke indicated SERC did not have anything to do with earthquakes or floodplain designation and did not feel they should take control of DEM.

 

Mrs. Freeman commented Natural Resources, Agriculture and Mining committee had heard several bills related to the same subject as AB 623, and she asked to be included in any action Chairman Garner might take to further research the bill.

 

There being no further testimony Chairman Garner closed the hearing on AB 623 and indicated he would like to meet with Mr. Hawke after the meeting.

 

ASSEMBLY BILL 630 - Allows disability retirement for certain police officers and firemen without regard to years of service.

 

As there was no testimony in favor of AB 630, Chairman Garner requested Mr. George Pyne to come forward and explain what the bill would do if passed.

 

Mr. George Pyne, Public Employees Retirement System (PERS), testified in opposition to AB 630.  He indicated Section 1, subsection 7 would basically waive the service requirement for police officers and fire fighters to apply for disability and retirement benefits.  Mr. Pyne stated presently all members of the system must have at least five years of service credit in the system in order to apply for disability benefits and this bill would allow police officers and fire fighters of the system to apply for disability regardless of how many years of service credit they might have.  Mr. Pyne pointed out the reason for the five-year threshold was, "To preclude a member of the system from receiving disability benefits from both the PERS and social security on account of the same disability.  The reason for that being primarily that under social security, the general qualification role to receive disability benefits is to have five years of participation in the last ten years; therefore, if somebody came into our system and worked one or two years and became disabled, they could apply for social security benefits and also from PERS.  The problem with that is we actually have what would amount to a social subsidy coming from the PERS because Social Security will look at the PERS benefit and offset their benefit dollar for dollar based on what we are paying the individual; therefore, the individual doesn't receive any greater benefit in his pocket, social security pays the lesser benefit and in effect we are indirectly subsidizing the federal government with our disability program."

 

Chairman Garner questioned if this would mean a policeman or fire fighter could ask for and get disability under the provisions of this bill after having worked only a day or two.  Mr. Pyne replied that was correct.

 

There being no further testimony, Chairman Garner closed the hearing on AB 630, and indicated he would hope to hear from the proponents of the bill in the near future.

 

SENATE BILL 363 - Revises requirements for approval by board of directors of district for control of floods of certain projects, improvements and proposals relating to control of floods.

 

Ms. Virginia Valentine, Chief Engineer and General Manager of Clark County Regional Flood Control District, testified in favor of SB 363 (Exhibit C).

 

Mrs. de Braga asked if the board had to have five members to hold the meeting and theoretically three people of the eight member board could make a decision.  Ms. Valentine indicated that was correct.

 

Mrs. Segerblom questioned what entities made up the board.  Ms. Valentine replied Clark County had two representatives, the city of Las Vegas had two, there was one councilman each from Boulder City, Mesquite, North Las Vegas and Henderson.

 

Mr. McGaughey gave a brief history of the bill as put together in 1985.  He said the reason for the two-thirds vote rather than a majority vote was the city of Las Vegas had two members, Clark County had two members, so a two-thirds vote would give equal weight and consideration to the smaller cities.

 

Ms. Valentine corrected previous testimony she had made, "It was asked if three of the five members... we still require a super majority, it still has to be two-thirds, so if five members showed up we would have to have four of them, because three of them is only 60 percent and two-thirds is 67 percent.  So the super majority requirement is still there, it's the number of members present voting on the matter that we are trying to change."

 

Mrs. Lambert asked, "Can you give me an example of the difference - the current language requires a unanimous approval by the board and the governing body of the government where the project is located.  And if you don't have that, then you have to have approval by the county and all the cities where part of the territory... Now you are just requiring a simple majority vote of the county and whatever cities the project..."

 

Mrs. Valentine replied, "It still is a two-thirds majority of the board and it would be a simple majority of - say we were going to do a project in the city of Las Vegas, it would allow us - what used to have to happen is you had to have six votes for it.  And if five people show up, you can't get six votes.  Also, each entity sort of retained a veto power, which was a problem in and of itself so that if, for example, we were doing a project in the city of Las Vegas and discharged into North Las Vegas, North Las Vegas could essentially kill a city project with just their entity when an interlevel contract went from a district board to the city council in North Las Vegas, North Las Vegas conceivably could just kill a city project."

 

Mrs. Lambert questioned if they could do that under the new language.  Ms. Valentine answered under the new language they could not because it would not go to the North Las Vegas City Council.  If the North Las Vegas city council had a legitimate flood control problem on the project the opportunity to voice its opposition would be when its representative met as a member of the flood control district board.

 

Chairman Garner asked Ms. Valentine if she felt the new structure would disadvantage the smaller communities.

 

Ms. Valentine replied she thought it would benefit the smaller communities.

 

Chairman Garner inquired if this legislation was being requested by the board.  Ms. Valentine answered yes.

 

Chairman Garner indicated he would like to be sure the smaller entities involved were in agreement with the bill before action was taken.  He requested Mr. McGaughey and Ms. Valentine to address the issue.

 

After further discussion and there being no further testimony, Chairman Garner closed the hearing on SB 363.

 

Discussion was held on several bills already passed out of committee.

 

Chairman Garner welcomed members of Reed High School from Sparks, to the committee.

 

There being no further business to come before committee, the meeting was adjourned at 8:50 a.m.

 

      RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

 

 

                             

      LINDA FEATHERINGILL

      Committee Secretary

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Assembly Committee on Government Affairs

May 20, 1993

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