Seventieth Session

May 6, 1999

The hearing of the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means was called to order at 3:50 p.m. on Thursday May 6, 1999 by Chairman Morse Arberry Jr. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All Exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

Mr. Morse Arberry Jr., Chairman

Ms. Jan Evans, Vice Chair

Mr. Bob Beers

Mrs. Barbara Cegavske

Mr. Joseph Dini, Jr.

Ms. Chris Giunchigliani

Mr. David Goldwater

Mr. Lynn Hettrick

Mr. Richard Perkins

Mr. Bob Price

COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:

Mrs. Vonne Chowning (Excused)

Mrs. Marcia de Braga (Excused)

Mr. John Marvel (Excused)

Mr. David Parks (Excused)

STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:

Mark Stevens, Fiscal Analyst

Gary Ghiggeri, Deputy Fiscal Analyst

Cynthia M. Cendagorta, Committee Secretary

Dr. Keith Rheault, Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction said the bill provided an incentive program to attract highly qualified teachers who received national board certification. The bill stemmed from the Legislative Committee on Education. Dr. Rheault referred to a pamphlet he distributed to the committee which addressed the program (Exhibit C). He said if Nevada was to attract highly competent teachers, the salary incentive would send a strong message that the teachers would be appreciated in Nevada. Dr. Rheault also served on the Commission on Professional Standards, which was the regulatory body for teacher licensing in the state, and the commission supported the bill as well. Also, many local districts had already approved incentive pay for national board certification, such as in North Carolina, which gave a 12 percent increase annually. The largest was Los Angeles School District which gave teachers a 15 percent annual raise. If Nevada was to compete and retain quality teachers, it needed those incentives.

Dr. Rheault said the commission had added their own non-monetary incentive plans which it hoped would also attract national board certified teachers. One of those incentives was to provide full reciprocity for teachers coming into the state, and another was to treat the license as a 10-year license. Those regulations actually put the license on par with a PhD. At that time, Nevada did not have one national

board certified teacher. Forty-five other states had at least one or more. The process for certification was very rigorous, and only around 50 percent of those who begin the program ultimately receive certification. In 1998 there were only 984 teachers in the country who earned certification and there were nearly 3000 going through the process in 1999. Certification was a year-long process so even if the committee approved the bill and made it effective July 1, 1999, the earliest the state could get people in the process in Nevada would be to enroll them in the summer and apply to the national board in the fall. After that, they had one year to complete the process and would find out at the end of 2000 if they were successful or not. Dr. Rheault strongly supported the passage of the bill.

Mr. Marvel asked how many teachers would apply for the process. Dr. Rheault said the process was rigorous, but the state was working on getting 10 to 20 people in the program.

Debbie Cahill, Nevada State Education Association (NSEA), supported the bill, and noted one area of concern. Ms. Cahill said North Carolina did not have a collective bargaining law or individual contracts at the local level. In Nevada, where the state did have bargaining, and salary was a mandatory subject of bargaining, the concern existed the bill would be carving a maximum limit in statute which would prevent bargaining at the local level. NSEA did support the bill as an incentive, and would like to have the recommended five percent be a minimum and offered an amendment to make that the floor of the incentive.

With no further business to come before the committee on S.B. 46 the hearing was closed.

Dr. Rheault said the bill was tied closely with S.B. 46 and would provide funding to the Department of Education to be used to reimburse the cost of national board certification. There had been criticism of Nevada’s teacher standards by several national publications that year. One of the reasons for this criticism was Nevada did not provide any incentives for teachers within the state to seek national board certification. By providing that minimal amount of money teachers would be encouraged to apply for certification, which was a $2,000 fee up front. There was a national grant that was available to all states, and Nevada did qualify for $10,000 per year. The limit on that grant was the state could only use a maximum of 50 percent of that funding for any one teacher. If that were provided in combination with any federal money, the state could pay $1,000 up front for up to 10 teachers a year to participate. The teachers would have to pay $1,000 of their own money, since the bill specified the teachers would not be reimbursed until they were actually awarded the certification. The funds would be used to support 20 teachers per year and build up the number of national board certified teachers in the state. Dr. Rheault reiterated his support for the bill.

Mr. Marvel asked if the state had to have the $20,000 in pocket in order to apply for the grant. Dr. Rheault said the money was set aside for the state to use and since Nevada had a minimum set aside for smaller states, there was already $10,000 available whether the bill passed or not.

Debbie Cahill, representing the Nevada State Teacher’s Association, supported the bill, and said the NSEA was in contact with several teachers who were already looking into becoming board certified. The benefits to the state would be enormous, with reciprocity given for certification and with recognition of a teacher’s talent at the national level. She had spoken with teachers who said the initial cost of $2,000 was prohibitive. The bill was therefore an important policy statement, which said the state was indeed helping teachers go through the process of board certification. Mr. Marvel asked if there was any way to have those teachers the state had paid for stay in the state after they were certified. Ms. Cahill said that could potentially be something the committee would want to address.

With no further business to come before the committee concerning S.B. 47, the hearing was closed.

Dr. Rheault said the bill changed some of the funding that was reserved for reversion on January 30, 1999. The bill reduced the amount of state appropriations reserved for reversion by $33,900 to cover a shortfall in operating costs for the Academic Standards Council. The $33,900 was needed to continue work on, Phase Two of the academic standards in Social Studies, Arts, Physical Education, and Computer Education and Technology.

Doug Thunder, Deputy Superintendent for the Department of Education, asked that the bill be amended. He added the last time the department was before the committee there was a shortfall of $51,000 to complete payments for the Terra Nova Test. At that time the department was asking that the $39,000 be transferred into that category from another category in the budget account. That left the department $11,500 short, and the department was asking that the money be transferred from the funding for the remediation consultant to provide additional funds for the 10^th grade testing program. Language had been which outlined the amendments that were requested to S.B. 282 (Exhibit D).

With no further business to come before the committee concerning S.B. 282, the hearing was closed.

Richann Johnson, Executive Assistant California-Nevada Super Speed Ground Transportation Commission Train Commission, said the bill would appropriate $1 million toward the activities of the Train Commission. The Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration would invest $1 billion in the year 2001 to explore and construct a mag lab segment for demonstration purposes. Applications had been submitted by 11 states to obtain funds for a demonstration site. The commission proposal was for a high speed ground transportation service between Las Vegas and Southern California. The demonstration segment was around 42 miles, and the intermediate service would be from Las Vegas to Barstow. The completed service would be from Las Vegas to Anaheim. The commission had submitted the application for $6 million in project development funds, which required a state and local match of $3 million. In March of 2000, the Federal Railroad Administration would select one project nationwide that would receive an additional $25 million in pre-construction design and engineering funds. In addition the selected project would receive $950 million in construction funding. The commission had raised $2 million locally, which was from the regional transportation commission.

Mrs. Evans asked what the Train Commission had done funding provided by previous appropriations. Ms. Johnson answered the previous dollars had been invested in a series of studies to determine the feasibility of the project Mrs. Evans asked what there was to show for the money spent to date. Ms. Johnson said the Train Commission was at the table with 11 other states, and the potential candidate list looked as though Nevada would indeed be included in that list. Mrs. Evans asked what options there were in the future depending on if the state was awarded the demonstration project by the federal government or not.

Neil Cummings, representing the California-Nevada Superspeed Train Commission, said what had really precipitated the current request was the federal mag lift deployment program which was passed as a part of T-21 in recent federal transportation legislation. The program called for five or six different projects to put together project descriptions, which addressed financial studies to ridership studies. The studies were a huge part of why the state was even able to get on the list. The game plan was to gather together the resources of the AMG group and the commission over the next 12 to 15 months and submit a project description that could compete for the federal money. In the course of doing that, the credibility of the project would hopefully become stronger as well so the project would be a great success. Mrs. Evans asked what expectations were for future funding from the legislature. Mr. Cummings said the majority of the funding was not expected to come from Northern Nevada. The plan was to develop the project to the point that it was very attractive to private and federal investment. Mrs. Evans said a couple of million dollars at a time added up. She asked if the funding had to be General Fund money or if financing from the Highway Fund was a consideration.

Tom Stephens, Director of the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT), said state highway fund dollars could not be used for any other purposes other than for public highways in the state. However, federal highway money was being contributed to the project by the Regional Transportation Commission of Clark County (RTC) in Southern Nevada. The locals could designate where they wanted the money spent, which is where the $2 million came from. As far as the proposal was concerned, some money had been spent already. There were two pots of money from T-21. One was a $55 million pot to continue with studies, which is what the 11 states were applying for, out of which 5 would be selected. Those five states would do more studies, and then compete for the $950 million pot from which one project would be built in the country. Nevada had a good chance of getting the project since the state had been working on the project for a long time, had no environmental problems, had great weather and terrain, and a tourist base to keep buying tickets to pay for the operating costs. Most importantly, the nature of the project was a demonstration project for mag lab technology. Mr. Stephens said he did not think there was anywhere else in the world that a company could showcase technology as well, since the whole world came to Las Vegas. The downside was the $950 million had not yet been appropriated by Congress, although $55 million had. If Congress did not think there was any value in going forward with the technology, they did not have to appropriate the extra money down the line.

Mr. Marvel asked how much money had been spent on the project already. Ms. Johnson said she did not know off the top of her head. Mr. Marvel asked what the estimated total cost of the project would be. Ms. Johnson said the total of the project from Las Vegas to Anaheim was estimated at $8 billion.

Dina Titus, State Senator, supported the bill, and said the project was a perfect example of public/private partnerships, which is what the state had been trying to emphasize lately in terms of implementing governmental policy. It was also a good example of local, state, and federal cooperation which used dollars, expertise and resources from all three levels of government. The project was also environmentally sound, especially in terms of all of the cars coming into Las Vegas and the air pollution that those vehicles generated. Also, as the economy flattened out and gaming proliferated around the country, the state needed to do everything it could to change from being a gaming destination to a full family type destination.

Ms. Giunchigliani asked about the Amtrack train that ran from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, and she remembered the tracks were set up for freight travel rather than high speed travel. She suspected that was what was driving the cost, since they would have to build new tracks.

Jack Jeffrey, representing the Train Commission, said the guideway was put on pylons and was elevated. That was a different type of construction. The guideway carried a magnetic field that drove the train, and would go primarily along Interstate 15 rather than the train tracks. Ms. Giunchigliani said she thought it would also cut down on accidents. Mr. Jeffrey said the traffic coming out of Southern California was very heavy. He added for the good of the gaming industry the state needed to do something to expedite bringing people into Southern Nevada.

Brian Gresh, Regional Transportation Commission of Clark County (RTC), said the commission had no formal position on the bill, but that its recent actions would indicate support. The RTC took up the matter of the Superspeed Train at its December 1998 meeting. For the RTC to insure that a local financial commitment was provided in accordance with T-21 monies, the RTC needed Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) funds in the amount of $1 million per year for both 1999 and 2000. The motion to provide $2 million had been approved unanimously by the commission during the December meeting.

With no further business to come before the committee concerning A.B. 682, the hearing was closed. Chairman Arberry then indicated that a number of bills needed to be considered.

Mark Stevens, Principal Fiscal Analyst, said the bill also removed the Commission of Minerals from the Department of Business and Industry.

Mr. Stevens said the bill added a district judge to the Fifth District in Nye County and also allowed court to meet in one or more additional locations within a county.

He added the committee might want to consider amending the appropriation into that. The court budgets were closed that morning and did not include funding for the additional district judge. Section Four of the bill indicated the judge would be elected at the November 7, 2000 election so there needed to be 6 months of salary provided for FY 2000-2001.

Mrs. Evans said the bill removed the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse from the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) and placed the agency into the Department of Human Resources. The Governor’s office was not in opposition to the change, and there were many amendments. Section II, Subsection I was deleted in its entirety; the internal state board was deleted from Section I, Subsection II; and Sections 10, 12, 13, and 14 were also deleted in their entirety. Section 11 contained the first mention of money and was modified with replacement language. Section 15 amended out all of the language about the internal state board and the Director of Human Resources to be replaced with new language. Mrs. Evans said that was rather radical surgery on the bill, and if the committee wanted the amendments drafted and brought back, that was an option.

Mr. Stevens said the bill would authorize $56.4 million in bonds to carry out the program that was a result of the Lake Tahoe Summit. Those bonds would be authorized over a number of biennia. The Governor had recommended $3 million in bonds to benefit Lake Tahoe during the upcoming biennium. The bill formalized the program to save the lake.

Mr. Stevens said the bill would revert the $5 million appropriation reserved for matching funds for the Tricounty Railroad. There were matching requirements that had not been met and the Governor had recommended the $5 million appropriation be reverted as part of the $130 million in reversions that would be required that fiscal year.

Mr. Dini stated the total of $15 million in non-state funds were required before the $5 million in state funds could be released. The money charged for the riding the train would go back to the state treasury. Mr. Dini proposed authorizing $5 million in bonds to allow the state matching funds to continue. The commission had been working very hard and had raised a little money to continue the operation of the commission. Mr. Dini said maybe the committee should give the commission until 2003 to generate the $15 million in matching funds, and then the state could sell $5 million in bonds and back them up. He did not want to pull the rug out from under the people who had worked so hard. Mr. Marvel agreed that all that effort should not go to waste.

Chairman Arberry indicated that the vote on A.B. 663 would be taken within the next few days.

With no further business to come before the committee the hearing was adjourned.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

Cynthia M. Cendagorta,

Committee Secretary

APPROVED BY:

Assemblyman Morse Arberry, Jr., Chairman

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