Can Democrats compromise to get schools built?

The most important bill flying through the 2015 Legislature has something every lawmaker can love. And something every lawmaker can hate.

Senate Bill 119 allows school districts to extend construction bonding for 10 years but exempts those projects from the state’s prevailing wage law. It’s an immediate solution for crowded schools, but both taxpayers and labor have cause for unhappiness. If a good compromise leaves everyone dissatisfied, then SB119 is the ultimate bargain.

So why did it pass the Senate on a party-line vote? And why might it die in the Assembly?

If SB119 becomes law, the Clark County School District could quickly address its growing enrollment and lack of classroom capacity by building new schools and renovating existing ones. Jim McIntosh, the school district’s chief financial officer, testified that the school district could raise $850 million almost immediately and complete about $3.6 billion worth of projects over 10 years. Washoe County has construction and renovation needs that would also be addressed by this bill.

Republicans support a legislative solution that allows capital-poor school districts to start building new campuses this year. New education spending proposed by GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval, such as universal full-day kindergarten, won’t work if schools lack classroom space.

However, most Republicans are unhappy that the bill, out of necessity, bypasses an electorate that rejected a property tax increase for school construction in 2012. Although SB119 would not increase property tax bills today, it would extend property tax payments that are retiring existing bonds decades into the future. That’s billions of dollars of new property tax liabilities. That’s a huge tax increase.

But Senate Republicans were willing to swallow that bitter pill because SB119 also exempts those school construction projects (as well as university projects) from the state’s prevailing wage law, which inflates the costs of public-sector building. An award-winning Review-Journal series in 2000 found the prevailing wage law added millions of dollars to the cost of every new school in the valley — money that could have been saved if the school district had merely paid market wages. We’ll get more schools for our money under SB119. And Republicans know that if the bill dies and a bond goes to the 2016 ballot, that question won’t contain a prevailing wage exemption.

Democrats want school construction to start this year, too. In fact, Senate Minority Leader Aaron Ford, D-Las Vegas, told a breakfast audience in January that a lack of classroom space was the most urgent problem facing our schools. But he and the rest of his caucus voted against SB119 because of the prevailing wage exemption.

They decided it’s more important for the construction workers who build our new schools to receive above-market wages than it is for crowded schools to get relief.

Three weeks into the legislative session, minority Democrats have decried the new GOP majority’s rush to pass bills they don’t like. Their frustration boiled over Friday when the Senate passed construction defect reforms and sent them to Gov. Brian Sandoval’s desk for approval.

Democrats want to be heard. They want the GOP to compromise.

So the GOP leadership compromised. They delivered a Democratic Party priority, albeit with a provision Democrats don’t like. But Republicans won’t support the bond rollover without the prevailing wage exemption. And so the bill was rejected out of hand by Democrats because … Democrats don’t want to compromise.

Of course, every Senate Democrat voted against SB119 because they knew Senate Republicans had the votes to send the bill to the Assembly. They had nothing to gain by angering their labor base.

But in the Assembly, it could be a different story in the coming weeks. A handful of fiscally conservative Republicans aren’t likely to support SB119, even with the prevailing wage exemption. The bill might need Democratic votes to pass. If Assembly Democrats hold together, they could join those Republicans to kill the bill. But would Democrats really cast the votes to block school construction?

If they do, it would be a hollow victory. If they do, it would show Democrats don’t really want to compromise at all.

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV.