Nevada school bond bill clears panel, heads to Assembly floor

CARSON CITY — A controversial bill that would extend a bond rollover program to address pressing school construction needs rose from the dead Tuesday in an Assembly committee when a second vote sent the measure to the full Assembly without a recommendation.

But the rancor involved in the votes, including allegations of threats and physical intimidation, are evidence the new Republican majority in the Nevada Legislature is seriously fractured.

The motion in the Assembly Government Affairs Committee to move Senate Bill 119, including provisions exempting school projects from the state’s prevailing wage law, to the full Assembly passed on a party-line 8-6 vote with Republicans in favor.

An initial vote in the committee failed to move the bill to the floor when two Republican lawmakers, Glenn Trowbridge and John Moore, both R-Las Vegas, voted no. Both voted in favor in the second vote, although both lawmakers said they reserve their right to oppose the measure on the floor.

Moore said after the votes that he supported the motion after being threatened by Assembly Majority Leader Paul Anderson, R-Las Vegas. Moore said he filed a complaint with the Legislative Police.

“I don’t take too kindly to those type of tactics, that’s not what I’m here for,” Moore said. “He took me to the stairwell and made threats against me and intimidated me.”

Anderson had no comment on the allegation.

After the Assembly committee failed to move the bill in the first vote, the Senate introduced and passed as an emergency measure Senate Bill 207 on a 15-4 vote. The stand-alone bill, which doesn’t include the prevailing wage provisions of SB119, would authorize school districts to roll over bonding authority. Four Republican senators voted no.

So now the two competing measures are in the Assembly. But which bill will land on Gov. Brian Sandoval’s desk, and who will be able to claim victory, remain up in the air.

Sandoval has made the school bond rollover a top priority and mentioned it in his State of the State address.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

SB119 was approved by the Senate on a party-line vote Feb. 16. It was heard by the Assembly Government Affairs Committee last week.

Republican senators announced Monday they would push the new bond rollover bill through if the Assembly failed to pass SB119 by the end of the week.

“We believe school overcrowding and degraded facilities have reached a level of crisis in Nevada that can no longer be ignored,” Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, Assistant Majority Leader Ben Kieckhefer and Sen. Becky Harris said in a written statement.

Approving SB207 would be a win for Democrats, who cried foul when the Senate combined a bipartisan consensus on the school bonds with the divisive issue of exempting schools and university construction projects from prevailing wage laws.

The bill ran into trouble in the Assembly from some Republicans who balked at the idea of allowing school bonding authority to roll over for 10 years without requiring voter approval.

Some Democrats expressed similar concerns, and also opposed the prevailing wage exemption.

Senate Republicans said the rollover provisions would not have won support in the Senate without the prevailing wage language.

DEMOCRAT SUPPORT NEEDED

The new bill with just the bond rollover language will require support from Democrats to win approval in the Legislature.

Senate Minority Leader Aaron Ford, D-Las Vegas, said he supports the alternative plan.

“I’m delighted to hear that Senator Roberson has an alternative plan, which is to do what we said should be done in the first place, and that’s to pass a clean rollover bill,” Ford said. “We’re looking forward to that bill to come out and helping the overcrowding situation throughout our state.”

Nevada’s prevailing wage law requires contractors who win publicly financed construction projects to pay workers according to a wage schedule established by the state’s labor commissioner. The original purpose of the law was to require local wage rates to be paid on public projects so that out-of-state competitors could not come in and undercut the local labor pool.

Kieckhefer argued that exempting the school projects would save at least 5 percent in construction costs, making the money go further.

But critics said the exemption would see projects go to out-of-state construction firms that would undercut Nevada contractors and reduce the pay of those who work on the projects.

Under the bill, the Clark County School District would be able to use $3.5 billion in bonding capacity for schools over the next 10 years without raising property taxes. It would be able to build seven new schools that could open by the fall of 2017.

But time is of the essence. School officials said they need to move forward in March to have the schools finished on time.

Review-Journal writer Sandra Chereb contributed to this report. Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801.