Clinger says state Medicaid boost will help get education stimulus money

Budget Director Andrew Clinger said Wednesday that some of the questions raised in a letter to his office from the Ways and Means Committee are "frankly legitimate" " including asking how the administration will fill some of the new gaps between revenue and proposed spending.

But he said it's incorrect to characterize all of the items on the list as "holes and errors."

He said most of the differences between what legislative fiscal analysts are projecting and the numbers from his office are because his projections were made as long ago as November.

"Economic conditions are different now," he said.

The biggest so-called "hole" to fill is at the university system. Neither higher education nor K-12 education can get any of the $395 million in education stimulus unless the state funds both at least at the level of Fiscal 2006. Public school budgets proposed by Gov. Jim Gibbons meet that requirement but the proposed state spending for higher education is $265 million short.

"That's going to have to come from freed-up dollars in Medicaid," Clinger said.

The stimulus package will increase the percentage of federal funding coming to Nevada Medicaid by better than 7 percent, generating an estimated $283 million for the state.

Clinger said there is no rule in the stimulus package preventing the state from backing that much in General Fund out of the stimulus and pumping it into the university system budgets, making the state eligible for the education stimulus cash.

The biggest disagreement on the list, he said, is the difference between projections for the amount a 3 percent increase in the room tax will generate. Legislative analysts say they project $59 million less over the biennium than Clinger's economist.

He said his staff will update their projections by March 16, the date Ways and Means Chairman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, has asked for answers to the questions in the letter.

He said the plan is to present lawmakers with not only answers to those questions by that date, but other proposed amendments to the governor's recommended budget.

Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.