Ways and Means has added nearly $140 million to budget

Assembly Fiscal Analyst Mark Stevens told the Ways and Means Committee Monday it has added nearly $140 million to the governor's recommended budget.

As of this week, he said, 92 percent of the state's 408 budget are closed on the Assembly side.

Although Ways and Means has cut significant amounts of general fund money out of some agency budgets, it has added more. If approved by the full Legislature, the increase would be $31.7 million more than Gov. Kenny Guinn's proposed spending plan for fiscal year 2004 and $107.6 million more for fiscal 2005.

Nearly all of that increase is caused by one decision the committee made: to give public school teachers a 4 percent pay raise in each year of the coming biennium. That is 2 percent more than Guinn proposed in 2004 and 4 percent more in 2005. Since each percent costs more than $18 million a year, that comes to a total of $140 million for the biennium.

But part of that cost was offset by cuts adopted by the committee, including elimination of Guinn's proposed full-day kindergarten -- nearly $20 million in savings.

That pay increase, however, is expected to meet with stiff opposition from Assembly Republicans and the GOP majority in the Senate.

The Senate Finance Committee is also working to close budgets, but had only voted on 85 percent of them as of Monday.