Another year in the books: A look back — and we didn’t make anything up

At a time when local governments are struggling with budget constraints brought on in part by generous wage and benefit packages, County Commissioner Tom Collins voted against a plan to end longevity pay for constables and justices of the peace, saying he didn’t want to contribute to the “downward spiral” of public employee wages. … State Sen. Mike Schneider, a Las Vegas Democrat, said he would seek to mandate annual tire-pressure checks on all Nevada registered vehicles as a means of saving gasoline and reducing pollution. … Clark County School Board Vice President Carolyn Edwards blamed the high number of students failing the High School Proficiency Exam on “severe budget cuts” even though kids can take the test up to eight times. …

During the same week legislative Democrats announced they would form their own panel to study state spending, the Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee approved a $3.2 million “wellness program” for state employees. … A Nevada husband and wife were told they couldn’t vote because – despite registering all their vehicles here, owning a small business in Carson City and having state-issued driver’s licenses — they had sold their residence and were living out of their RV. … The Nevada State Contractors Board cited a 14-employee, $2 million-a-year business because the receptionist there answered the phone without reciting the full legal name of the company. …

In the midst of the worst housing slump in Southern Nevada’s history, Clark County officials proposed — at a cost of up to $3,000 for a 2,000-square-foot home — mandating that all new houses in the unincorporated county feature fire sprinklers. … Las Vegas came in at No. 144 on Allstate’s rankings of drivers in 200 American cities. … In a cable TV interview during his re-election campaign, Sen. Harry Reid said, “But for me, we’d be in a worldwide depression.” … Democrats in charge at the Nevada Legislature decreed that the Senate Taxation Committee be renamed the Senate Revenue Committee to avoid having taxpayers focus on “the negative ‘taxation’ word,” state Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, explained. …

When a high school student in Fallon wrote a story in the school newspaper critical of a teacher, the local teachers union attempted to kill the piece before it was published and later sued in a losing effort on behalf of the teacher. … As University Medical Center struggled to stay afloat, it was revealed in January that 84 illegal immigrants were receiving dialysis treatment at the county hospital, costing taxpayers more than $2 million a month. … When told that his plan to ban foreclosure home sales in the city limits might not pass constitutional muster, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman replied, “I don’t care.” …

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals urged supporters to protest a “donkey” basketball fundraiser in little Yerington, 90 miles southeast of Reno. The event features community leaders trying to shoot hoops while riding donkeys on a makeshift basketball court. … The Clark County School District unveiled new bio-diesel electric hybrid buses in February, but it turns out that the average life span of a school bus is shorter than the time it would take the district to recover the higher costs of the vehicles through fuel savings. … In an attempt to stave off budget adjustments, the director of Nevada’s Health and Human Services Department told lawmakers that diapers for the elderly may eventually have to be rationed. …

Gov. Jim Gibbons set up the Education Gift Certificate program, a fund designed to let taxpayers who feel the state doesn’t adequately fund the public schools to “contribute directly” to teacher salaries. Two months later, the fund had raised a total of $261. … An audit of state contracts with current or former state employees revealed that one employee billed the state for working 25 hours in a day, while another took home $350 an hour for a job that usually called for $65 an hour. … A man robbed a Bellagio craps game of more than $1 million, much of it in $25,000 chips, which he’ll likely never be able to cash. …. When Goodman suggested that city workers give up scheduled pay raises and instead accept pay cuts over the next two years to help the city deal with a $70 million budget hole, city union bosses called him a “bully.” …

Happy New Year.