CARSON CITY — It was a Special Session of the Nevada Legislature that promised battle but delivered  compromise instead. With the exception of a few skirmishes, and an assemblywoman who stood up and cussed out lobbyist before storming out of the room (a moment we’re sorry we missed) no one was really bloodied.

Well, not the Legislators, at any rate.  Feeling the blows in particular were higher education, banking and small mining companies.  Assemblyman Pete Goicoechea addressed the impact the rural counties could expect.

The Good:  Goicoechea praised the efforts of the Legislators who, he said, worked together to shrink the $800,000 million gap in the budget. 

Through compromise, he said, they were able to work out $305 million in reductions, about $53 million in new fees, some money was transferred from state reserves, and with a few bucks from the federal government they were able to balance things up a bit.

“It went fairly well,” Goicoechea said. “The governor engaged, he came to the building and went to work and all four caucuses worked together.”

In the end, however, Goicoechea voted against the entire bill because he could not vote for the increase in mining claim fees.

The Bad:  The gold mining industry is, of course, still doing fine in a bad economy – it was the  way the new fees were levied that caused Goicoechea to vote against the  measure.

Those with more than ten claims had been paying, among their fees, $5 to the state.  Under the new legislation that fee is now $125 per claim --or more  depending on the number of claims. 

The fee increase is probably not a big deal for Barrick or Newmont, Goicoechea said, but for junior mining companies or exploration companies who aren’t mining anything such a fee increase represents a hardship.

Goicoechea’s efforts to tie the fees to those mines actually producing were not successful.  He called the measure “very ugly”.

“My big concern is if there’s no ability to pay they’ll be forced out and ultimately the major mining companies, who have the ability to pay, will gobble them up,” he said.  “I wanted to see some equity and the only way to get equity would be to tie it to production.”

Goicoechea wasn’t thrilled with the new banking fee, either. He explained the new foreclosure mediation fee will tack $150 onto the foreclosure mediation process.  Now, the bank must pay $150 to the state and they will not receive any services in exchange. 

However,  the projected $13 million generated from the fee is expected to raise just what was needed to keep the prison in Carson City open.  The governor had proposed closing the prison, or at least portions of it, because of the high cost of maintaining the old building, but that would have cost 250 state employees their jobs and would have  created overcrowding in other prisons, he said.

“The prison is expensive to run, but they all are,” Goicoechea said. “Anytime you hold prisoners it’s expensive.”

While both higher education and k-12 education expected to take a 10-20 percent hit, a compromise allowed for a 6.9 percent cut.

“I bet most of the rural school districts are tickled to death because they were anticipating a ten percent cut or higher,” he said.

The individual districts must determine where the cuts will come from. 

The Ugly: Goicoechea called the Special Session a cake walk compared to what’s in store for the state during the next Legislative session when representatives will have to seriously discuss the widening budget gap – not just apply band-aids.

When asked what he’s hearing from his constituents, Goicoechea said for every voter who approaches him with a willing attitude for a tax increase, whether that be on sales or property tax, another voter says he or she is unwilling to pay any more taxes.

“The public is going to have to understand  that at some level they’re going to have to support new taxes, new revenue, or the state will shut down,” he said.  “The public must decide what they’re willing to pay for or not willing to pay for or some programs will go away.”

“It’s really, really tough to get that balance and determine what your constituents want,” he added.

While there has been some concern from local government that the state government may demand more from local coffers, Goicoechea said if there had been anything left to take it would have happened already.

The real concern, he advised, is the cost of services that may be passed from the state to the local level – especially in the area of health and human services, rural mental health,  and law enforcement.