Lawmakers try to wrap up higher education budget

CARSON CITY — Legislative leaders huddled behind closed doors today, working on a spending plan for Nevada's higher education that's expected to have cuts far below the 36 percent reductions proposed by Gov. Jim Gibbons.

The higher education budget proposed in January by Gibbons called for spending about $844 million on the state university-college system.

Under the governor's plan, cutbacks for the two universities in Reno and Las Vegas would be about 50 percent, levels rejected by the legislators as draconian and unsustainable. Likely add-backs by the lawmakers would increase the system's budget to more than $1 billion.

Outside the conference room where top lawmakers were meeting in private, Jim Richardson of the Nevada Faculty Alliance said he had heard talk of cuts of 13 to 14 percent.

Richardson hopes for something less. In his words, "If we could get them down to 10 percent I'd pop out the champagne."