$500K in school funding up in smoke

Posted by Webmaster on February 6, 2009 under K-12

This will make you sick:

“I don’t know what their ultimate qualifications are. I just know they cost us $15.76 an hour right now,” said Paul Gerner, associate superintendent for the school district’s facilities division.

During the last school year, the district spent almost half a million dollars on fire guards.

Channel 13 Action News broke the story. You can bet it wasn’t Jim Rogers’ channel 3!

Nevada makes The Economist (look bad)

Posted by Webmaster on February 5, 2009 under News

From the latest issue of “The Economist” magazine:

Nevada has long been a low-tax, low-services state. But its culture is changing. The working-class Latinos who have moved there, often from California, are less libertarian and keener on public services than older whites. In November voters in Reno and Las Vegas approved an increase in hotel taxes to pay for schools. They also handed control of the state Senate to Democrats for the first time since 1993. The new political majority will need to keep the state attractive to business. The worst outcome for Nevada is that it acquires California’s taxes and dismal business climate but not its talent pool or coastal breezes.

How embarrasing! A second, though less-respected, national publication gets it wrong about Nevada.

In fact, Nevada’s tax burden, when you include taxes on residents and taxes on Nevadans, holds the 25th rank for services – hardly “low-services”. The Economist will almost certainly not correct it’s error as quickly as the Wall Street Journal last week. That’s what makes them less-respected.

Charged Appetitie

Posted by Webmaster on February 5, 2009 under News

I have always said the only sure thing that comes from overfeeding government is that you increase government’s appetite for more money.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal noted the same phenomenon:

The states with the biggest deficits tend to be the most profligate. California has by far the biggest gap — $40 billion — thanks in part to a 40% increase in spending over the last five years. Arizona, Florida and Nevada also have deficits of roughly 20% of their operating budget; each of these states allowed their expenditures to grow by more than 50% faster than the average state budget over the last decade.

Nevada Economy

Posted by Webmaster on February 1, 2009 under Economy In Brief

Here’s the fourth quarter 2008 “Nevada Economy In Brief” published by the Nevada Employment Security Department.