Joan Barron

Sen. Gerald Geis never has forgotten how the Legislature raided millions of dollars from state water development accounts during the dark days of the last energy bust.

What rankles Geis is that the Legislature never put the money back.

The Worland Republican, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Public Lands and Water Resources Committee and has served 24 years in the Senate, is one of the few legislators around who remember the time beginning in the late 1980's when the bottom fell out of the mineral economy.

The budget shortfall spurred a state hiring freeze, "doomsday" budgets, and a scramble for money to keep schools and government offices open.

Although the state's permanent funds had healthy balances, the legislators couldn't tap into them or into any earmarked accounts.

Earmarking had been the bane of state officials for years because it left the Legislature with a relatively small amount of money to work with in proportion to the total state budget.

Out of necessity, the officials hatched some extraordinarily creative ways to siphon off the bucks from other agencies.

The Legislature grabbed the surplus water development money to run the State Engineer's Office.The lawmakers also did a switcheroo with the Department of Transportation's revenue stream.

We were looking for money anywhere we could find it," Sen. John Hines, R-Gillette, a 21-year-legislative veteran, said last week.

"We also took interest from a lot of funds," he added. "You realize when you're cutting programs how tough it is to get money."

Hines, who is co-chairman of the Joint Appropriations Committee, has this period of doomsday budgets in mind when he cautions his colleagues to be careful spending the state's huge budget surplus.

The best course, many legislators agree, is balance - don't spend too much or save too much and leave bucks on the table for the next Legislature.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal, meanwhile, wants the Legislature to reduce the state's four cent sales tax by one-half cent. He claims the lawmakers can do this simply by triggering an existing law.

Although the 1993 law increasing the sales tax by one penny called for its repeal in 1996, jittery lawmakers left it on the books.

Instead, in 1995 the Legislature made the fourth penny tax permanent but allowed for a reduction in the tax by one-half of one percent If the state's General Fund had a balance of $35 million free and clear.

But the General Fund never reached that threshold because the Legislature sweeps the excess General Fund money into the Budget Reserve Account, leaving a balance of $10 million - not enough to trigger a tax cut.

This looks like a shell game being played with different state funds. But that may be too harsh an assessment.

Maybe it was just another creative budget strategy.

On the opening day of legislative sessions in years past the senators and representatives gathered in the House to hear the governor's address, following by the chief justice of the supreme court.

Then everyone went to lunch.

This year, visitors got a third set of speeches, from House Speaker Randall Luthi, R-Fremont, and Senate President Grant Larson, R-Jackson.

Luthi said later that the Legislature has been taking steps every year "to make sure we're an equal branch of government."

"The governor speaks, the supreme court chief justice speaks, and we don't," Luthi said.

This year the legislative leaders spoke.

Then everyone went to lunch.

In a recent column I erred on the amount of salaries legislators receive. As of January 1, 2005 the lawmakers receive $150 per day salary, up from the $125 per day in effect since 1995.

Capital bureau reporter Joan Barron can be reached at (307) 632-1244 or at joan barron@casperstartribune.net