Lawmakers to handle public education, prisons budgets today

Legislative money committees take on two of the largest and most contentious budget issues today as they try to reach an agreement on spending for public schools and prisons.

Under the governor's proposed budget, the amount the state provides per pupil would be reduced $355 below what the 2007 Legislature provided, to $4,968. The money goes through the Distributive School Account, which is the largest single budget in the state, at $2.9 billion.

One of the decisions lawmakers must make involves the pay cuts called for in the governor's budget. In handling state worker salaries Monday evening, they converted the pay cut into a one-day-per-month furlough " which works out to about a 4.6-percent cut over a year. But teacher salaries are collectively bargained.

Other issues include reductions to education programs such as the elimination of the Regional Professional Development Program and teacher signing bonuses.

Within the prison budgets, the biggest issue is the subcommittee's decision to keep both Carson City's Nevada State Prison and the Tonopah Conservation Camp open.

The decision leaves the Department of Corrections underfunded by $22 million a year. But it enables lawmakers to not fund construction of a new Southern Nevada prison this session " a cost of some $200 million in bonds.

Hearings will begin at 8 a.m. on the education budgets in Room 3137 and the prison budgets in Room 2134.