RENO " Advocates for schools, children, families, seniors, the disabled and others fearing more state budget cuts urged Gov. Jim Gibbons and lawmakers on Wednesday to have the political courage to raise taxes to meet basic needs of Nevadans during the economic crisis.
"While the whole nation is looking at stimulating the economy as a solution to the crisis, Nevada is still looking at cuts," said Retta Dermody of Nevada PEP, a statewide training and information center for parents of children with disabilities.
"Unfortunately, the years of hard work to build an adequate infrastructure for education and human services for our state has Nevada still on the top of every bad list and the bottom of every good list," she said.
Leaders of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and representatives of more than two dozen of its coalition organizations rallied in Reno and Las Vegas Wednesday to protest what they expect will be additional cuts to state services outlined in Gibbons' State of the State address tonight.
"The cuts are unconscionable. We need to ask our legislators and governor to look for another way," Clark County School District Trustee Carolyn Edwards told the roughly 30 people gathered in Las Vegas. "We need a forward-looking plan."
PLAN issued a report earlier this week with a variety of revenue proposals, including establishing a state income tax and taxing the capital gains, interest and dividends of anyone with unearned income in excess of $200,000.
The report "shows our state to have one of the most regressive, unstable and inadequate tax structures in the U.S. and consequently is unable to address the growth and needs of our population," said Joe Edson, PLAN's field organizer.
"Nevada doesn't have a spending problem. It has an income problem. Its tax system is both structurally unsound and unfair. We tax the poorest taxpayers among us at a rate of four times the richest," he said.
The budget that Gibbons is expected to outline today will be more than $2 billion below the estimated $8.1 billion needed to maintain current government services. His budget drafters have asked some agencies for "what-if" plans for cuts that could exceed the 34 percent they've already considered.
At a news conference at the Washoe County Senior Center, PLAN leaders and allies outlined the widespread social and economic harm they say budget cuts to date have caused, especially to education, health and human services.
"The governor's duplicitous words and actions have made a mockery of education in Nevada," said Mary Jo Parise-Malloy of Nevadans for Quality Education.
"Virtually every credible study of the welfare of children in Nevada concludes that our state is not a good or healthy place to raise children," she said.
Nevada's ranking among the five worst states in the nation in terms of per-pupil funding has resulted in oversized classes, inability to attract and retain qualified teachers and overwhelmed support services, such as special education, counseling, nursing and teaching of the English language, Parise-Malloy said.
Connie McMullen, chairwoman of Nevada's Senior Services Strategic Plan Accountability Committee, said the state's Medicaid budget has fallen so short it threatens to deny nursing home care to low-income elders, displace at-risk seniors who qualify for group home care and limit waivers that fund home delivered meals, respite care and caregiver services.
"Never before has funding been more critical to underserved seniors in the state," she said. "Elders are frightened, worried how they will pay for their utilities, rent and prescription drugs."
Tim Healion, executive director of Business Advocating Social Equity, said small businesses are hurting because of the increasing cost of health care combined with state and local government's use of tax breaks to lure "big box stores" to the area.
"Business in Nevada is also confronted with less attractive circumstances than in other states, particularly regarding quality of education, transportation and social services," Healion said.
"We need our state to act quickly to insure that Nevada small business doesn't disappear. I'd be willing to pay more taxes to make sure this doesn't happen," he said.