Nevada governor defends pay increases to office staffers

Gov. Jim Gibbons's chief of staff is continuing to defend salary increases in the governor's office, saying that overall payroll costs have been cut by 11 percent.

Some employees in the governor's office have seen significant pay boosts but only because they were promoted to new jobs with added duties, Josh Hicks said.

The Republican governor was criticized by leading legislative Democrats following disclosures Monday that some staffers were getting salaries nearly twice what lawmakers had approved. The increases were possible because Gibbons now has 17 staff members, fewer than the legislatively approved 27.

A 1999 state law allows governors to set pay for their immediate staff at any figure if the total salary budget for the office doesn't exceed what was set by the Legislature.

Democratic legislators, however, aren't backing down from their criticism of Gibbons, especially because he has asked state workers and teachers to take 6 percent pay cuts starting July 1.

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should, particularly when he is asking all other state employees, including teachers, to take cuts," Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, said Tuesday.

"It looks bad," added Assembly Ways and Means Chairman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas. "Everyone needs to take a hit. If it wasn't such a bad year economically, we wouldn't mind. But how do we tell teachers that they must take a salary cuts when he has given his employees raises?"

Hicks contended that the pay increases approved by Gibbons are no different than increases any state employee would get, even in a recession, after a promotion.

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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com