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State’s ‘boom-bust’ cycles targeted

CARSON CITY — Nevada lawmakers will start their fourth week of the 2009 session on Monday with a review of a plan to create a forced savings account to ensure more stability in the state budget, now being hammered by a global economic downturn.

Governor tears up ‘markers’ tax plan

CARSON CITY — Gov. Jim Gibbons backed off Friday from his plan to require casinos to pay gaming taxes more quickly on “markers,” or credit extended to players.

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Gun control bill considered

CARSON CITY — Lawmakers were asked Friday to support a bill stepping up record-keeping to help prevent the mentally ill from obtaining guns, but they were warned by a critic of the plan that it’s a “stacked deck” targeting constitutional rights.

Revenue from tax breaks unknown

CARSON CITY — Nevada legislators who want to repeal tax exemptions and use the money to balance the state budget might find that difficult because legislative fiscal analysts said Thursday they could not compute how much the many tax breaks yield.

Raggio criticizes county pay hikes

CARSON CITY — Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio on Thursday criticized Clark County government officials for offering cost-of-living raises to its employees when state government might be forced to cut salaries by 6 percent.

Legislative panel backs delaying prison projects

CARSON CITY — Told that the state’s prison population is lower than expected, members of a Senate-Assembly budget panel said Thursday that they would like a delay in new prison construction and an end to plans to shut down an old prison and an inmate camp.

Senate vote upholds 2007 veto of tax hike

CARSON CITY — Gov. Jim Gibbons got his wish Thursday when state senators unanimously upheld his veto of a bill passed in 2007 that would have allowed rural counties to raise property taxes to construct juvenile detention facilities.

Legislators spotlighting outbreak

CARSON CITY — Southern Nevadans can testify about their experiences with the hepatitis C outbreak during a special legislative meeting at 8 a.m. Saturday in room 4401 of the Sawyer Building in Las Vegas.

Legislators seek experimental aircraft ban at NLV airport

A joint resolution proposed by state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford and Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick seeks to ban experimental aircraft flights out of North Las Vegas Airport.

Republicans criticize Reid, say Nevada shortchanged in stimulus bill

CARSON CITY — Assembly Republican leaders said Wednesday that Sen. Harry Reid should have secured more funds for Nevada in the $787 billion economic stimulus package signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama.

Time runs out for parents seeking to testify at hearing on Medicaid cuts

Parents of more than two-dozen children who depend on the state to fulfill their medical needs showed up at the Sawyer Building on Wednesday to explain how proposed Medicaid cuts would impact their lives. They didn’t get the chance. The 45 minutes allocated for public comment evaporated before Sara King, the mother of a child with cerebral palsy, and others made it to the microphone.