BUDGET WATCH NEVADA
Contact Mark Warden at 702-368-3001 or markwarden@cox.net for press information and interviews.
Mission Statement:  To help the Legislature and the Governor realize cost savings and improved efficiencies in Nevada's budget appropriations,
thereby better serving the State's residents, students, businesses, and taxpayers.  We will provide sound analysis and reasonable recommendations
to be used to find non-partisan solutions to excessive government growth, while maintaining a commitment to providing legitimate tax-funded services.
Budget Watch Nevada's goal is to provide a resource for legislators, academics, policy makers, taxpayers, the media, and citizens that can be used to
hold our elected and un-elected officials accountable and highlight some of the more outrageous spending by the State's bureaucracies.
We invite elected officials to take the moral high road of liberty and avoid the current path of pandering to special interests.
We will also serve as a clearinghouse for citations by Nevadans of the most egregious examples of government waste, abuse, fraud, and power.
All of our findings will be based on the following sound economic and social principles:
Many of the services currently provided by government should be moved to the private sector.
In many cases, the government program is worse and costlier than the so-called problem it was designed to fix.
Socialism doesn't work.  America's free enterprise, liberty-based, government-business cooperative system is superior.
Central planning reduces creativity, productivity, efficiency, adaptability, and service levels, while placing more power in the hands of dangerously few.
This type of control didn't work in the Soviet Union and doesn't work in Cuba or North Korea or China.  Nevada should avoid such tendencies.
The free market provides the most efficient use of resources and provides the best levels of service at lower cost -- government does the opposite.
Monopolies breed inefficiencies and higher costs; competition breeds innovation, more efficiency, and lbetter services at a lower cost.
The "public trust" can only be maintained when government agencies, employees, and programs provide accountability and transparency in their operations.
Government should foster independence, personal responsibility, and self-reliance among constituents, not breed economic and social dependency as it now does.
Comments on the Governor's presented Executive Budget for years 2007-2009 are listed below for your review.*
* Figures refer to the "Executive Budget in Brief for 2007-2009" presented to Nevadans on behalf of Governor Gibbons,
the Budget and Planning Division, and Department of Administration of the State of Nevada dated January 22, 2007.  This document may
be viewed online at:  http://budget.state.nv.us.
	RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BUDGET CUTS - Part 1
		BWN					See
Exec. Budget	Proposed	Suggested	2-year	Target			Footnote
Reference Pages	Spending	Spending	Savings	Program	Commentary/Reasoning/Explanation		#
Cover letter	51,000,000	-	51,000,000	Full-day kindergarten	Unproven, discriminatory program.  This is all-day babysitting.  Taxpayer subsidy to parents who don't want to pay a babysitter.
Cover letter	10,000,000	-	10,000,000	Biotech plan	Central planning. Let bioscience companies do it, not legislators.  Lower taxes, and those businesses will want to come here.		1
Cover letter	60,000,000	-	60,000,000	Empowerment for K-12	Change policy without throwing money at the problem.  Allowing more flexibility doesn't need to cost money.
Cover letter	17,400,000	-	17,400,000	War on Meth	Pet project.  Most drug laws fail miserable.  Use existing resources.  Alcohol and cigarettes are FAR WORSE health problems.
Cover letter	280,000,000	186,666,480	93,333,520	Pay raises	Cut COLA raises to 4% over 2 years, not 6%.  Pay increases should be tied to performance, not to political handouts.  Employees would be better off with lower taxes and thus wouldn't need as much in pay increases.
Intro 1-3	349,833,033	342,008,871	7,824,162	Rainy Day Fund	Lower General Fund Balance to minimum mandated 5% reserve.
Intro 13/14	3,171,054	-	3,171,054	W.I.C.H.E.	This program should be abolished.  It is obsolete, dating back nearly 50 years.  It involves manipulating a system of stipends for free education in selected fields for those who will work in selected areas, and it skews market forces.
Intro 13/14	6,550,707	5,240,566	1,310,141	Office of Veterans Affairs	This is a federal program, so why is the state involved?  It costs Nevadans over $3 million per year to implement this federal program.  Send it back to Washington.  Cut 20% every biennium.
Intro 13	29,772,997	22,329,748	7,443,249	Dept. of Cultural Affairs	Cultural Affairs?  If we don't know what it is by its name, we certainly shouldn't be spending $15 million per year, every year, on these programs.  Cut back 25% every year.
		TOTAL SAVINGS	251,482,127	Wow!
	SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS
DETR - 8	13,866,898	12,866,898	1,000,000	DETR	The Information Development and Processing (IT) dept. spends nearly $7 million per year and has 50 employees. This dept. should be cut. Some services can be outsourced.
DETR - 9	140,557	20,000	120,557	IDP	Governor recommends spending $140,557 to upgrade the website.  This amount is excessive.
ESD - 10	42,245,955	38,245,955	4,000,000	Career Enhancement Program	Career Enhancement Program has a huge profit/reserve that could be cut by lowering tax from .05% to .04% and reducing overhead.  Program spends $7 million a year to provide $5 million in "services."
DETR - 14	5,617	1,800	3,817	IDP	Money to purchase 7 lateral files and a color printer. File cabinets don't cost $800 a piece!  Buy surplus or used and pay $200 each.
DETR - 15	100,000	-	100,000	Research & Analysis	Research and Analysis dept. wants $100,000 fro a customer satisfaction survey.
DETR - 30	10,695	1,500	9,195	Rehab	Vocational rehab. Program wants over ten grand for 5 laser printers.  We all know that personal printers don't cost $2,000 a piece!
CULT. AFFAIRS - 53	9,977,963	9,479,065	498,898	State Library	Cut expenses/personnel by only 5%.
CULT. AFFAIRS - 59	384,597	-	384,597	Literacy Coalition	Abolish this program and let volunteers provide programs.  We already paid for 12 years of schooling and adults still cannot read?  Cut funding.
CULT. AFFAIRS - 76	4,706,605	4,235,945	470,661	NV Arts Council	Cut program by only 10%.  Art is subjective and not a state priority.  Let cities/counties do their own programs.  Twelve employees is excessive.
NHSE - 4	7,000,000	-	7,000,000	System Admin.	Economic development initiative for non-gamin business.  This is unncecessary.  Reduce taxes and regulation, and businesses will come to Nevada.
NHSE - 4	400,000		400,000	P-21 Council	With monopoly status in Nevada, NHSE doesn't need to spend money to tell H.S. seniors about opportunities for higher ed.  That's what school counselors and students' parents are for.
NHSE - 6	5,472,070	-	5,472,070	Special Projects	These secretive and experimental programs to stimulate competitive research (EPSCoR) are unnecessary.  Eliminate funding.
NHSE - 9	1,666,138	833,069	833,069	University Press	Outsourcing can be used for printing services.  Professors need to write scholarly research whether this bureaucracy is in place or not.
NHSE - 24	100,000	-	100,000	UNR	"Enable, Motivate & Reward Self Sufficiency" sounds like a lot of educrat mumbo-jumbo.  Students already know how to compete for postgraduate awards and programs.
NHSE - 36	1,000,000	0	1,000,000	School of Med. Sciencees	Pork program not even requested by agency.  This would be a never-ending bureaucracy that would have to look hard to find work to stay busy.  Studies are already done elsewhere.
NHSE - 38	3950180	1975090	1,975,090	Health Lab & Research	Much of this work is redundant to what the feds do at FEMA and CDC, as well as that of many other public health institutions and agencies locally.
NHSE - 43	21,394,334	18,777,144	2,617,190	Agricultural Experiment Station	Simply cut back to 2005-06 budget levels and save over $2 million.  Let our neighbors in California pay for ag research.
NHSE - 44	22,982,730	20,684,457	2,298,273	Cooperative Extension Svc.	Their mission is "to . . . use knowledge to strengthen the social . . . well being of all people."  What on earth is that?  With over 100 employees, this albatross should be cut 10%.
NHSE - 51	222,423,553	217,975,082	4,448,471	UNLV	Cut 2% and raise tuition.Taxpayers subsidize 69% of the cost of the university!  If it were a business, it would be losing $153 million per year . . . every year.
NHSE - 53	1,570,450	-	1,570,450	UNLV	Paradies E.S. lease.  Agency didn't even request funding for this.  Use existing univ. property.  This is a sweetheart deal to the Airport Authority.
NHSE - 56	100,000	-	100,000	UNLV	Nevada Scholars scholarship.  This is a pork project for some adminsistrator or bureaucrat.  Kill the project before it takes life.
NHSE - 62	2,892,594	2,792,594	100,000	UNLV	"Specialty Centers" within UNLV cost $1.4 million and have nebulous, dubious descriptions.  With 14 employees, the average cost per employee is $100,000.  Cut one person.
NHSE - 68	25,959,485	24,921,106	1,038,379	LAW SCHOOL	Taxpayers spend $8.5 million every year to subsidize 72% of the cost of law school for these future wealthy lawyers.  Cut 4%.
NHSE - 73	26,992,700	25,912,992	1,079,708	DENTAL SCHOOL	Taxpayers spend $8.2 million every year to subsidize 63% of the cost of dental school for these future wealthy doctors.  Cut 4%.
NHSE - 81	23,245,605	20,921,045	2,324,561	Desert Research Institutre	Cut by 10%.  How much more do we need to know about the desert, anyway?  It's hot and dry.
NHSE - 81	1,000,000	-	1,000,000	DRI	Pet project to "generate more accurate information on Nevada's groundwater resources."  Let SNWA do it -- they are a tremendously wealthy agency.
NHSE - 88	38,893,914	31,532,558	7,361,356	Great Basin College	Taxpayers subsidize a whopping 89% of the entire cost of this college.  This is a make-work program for college employees.  Roll back to 2005-06 budget levels and save $7 million.
NHSE - 92	49,900,875	42,963,758	6,937,117	Western NV Comm. College	Taxpayers subsidize a whopping 87% of the entire cost of this college, at a cost of $24,322 per student!  Roll back to 2005-06 budget levels and save $7 million.  Or close college and send them elsewhere free ride.
NHSE - 99	260,106,445	219,953,336	40,153,109	CCSN	This behemoth employees 1200 people and costs Nevada taxpayers $90,000,000 every year, and they measure student competency in "cultural awareness."  Subsidized 76%. Roll back to 2005-06 expenditures and save $40 million.
NHSE - 109	38,944,456	26,000,000	12,944,456	NV State College	Governor wants to DOUBLE the NSC budget in only 3 years. Students pay only $1,548 per year on average, although the cost of operation is $9,280 per year. Raise tuition and cost costs.
			-
TOTAL SAVINGS OVER THE BIENNIUM			107,341,024
Government should not be in the business of "business development."  Their only duty in this regard is to minimize burdensome regulations and taxation, and needed businesses will flourish.