Gibbons’ proposed pay raises ‘bizarre’

CARSON CITY -- Lawmakers are continuing to challenge Gov. Jim Gibbons over proposed salary increases for his staff, calling the raises "bizarre" and "cavalier" because most state workers are in line for pay cuts.

"What I'm feeling and what I'm sensing, just from the e-mails I'm getting on this legislative account, is outrage," Assemblyman John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, said during an Assembly Ways and Means Committee hearing.

"Everyone is being asked, whether it's the private sector or public sector, to reduce the amount spent on their health insurance, the amount of their pay," Oceguera said. "They've been asked to do more with less."

Josh Hicks, the governor's chief of staff, said that overall payroll costs have been cut by 11 percent and that staffing in the office has been cut, leaving remaining employees "doing more with less."

But many of the remaining employees in the governor's office saw significant pay boosts after being promoted.

"If you look at this historically, in context, you can see that the governor's office is reducing, we're cutting back, and we're spending a lot less than we did in previous years," Hicks said.

Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, said the raises were "bizarre," noting that two of the positions that were cut were "constituent services" jobs and asking how the governor's office could say it was doing more.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, called the raises "cavalier," adding that it might be time to review the law that allows the governor to set salaries within his office, working with a fixed overall dollar figure.

State workers protested the raises outside the state's Sawyer Building in Las Vegas and the Legislature in Carson City.

In Las Vegas, about three dozen people gathered at the Sawyer Building for a brief union-organized protest of the pay raises for Gibbons' staffers.

"Where's their sacrifice?" said Mark Carpenter, a corrections officer at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs who said workers there are suffering because of a hiring freeze and other cutbacks.

"It's becoming less like work and more like indentured servitude," he said.

Nancy Yanda, a certified nursing assistant at Nevada State Veterans Home in Boulder City, criticized the governor for handing out hefty raises when other people may be losing their cost-of-living and other pay increases.

"He should give me a job; I'll work for him," Yanda said. "I'm going to need another job to pay for food and gas."

Las Vegas Review-Journal writer Lynnette Curtis contributed to this report.