By Cy Ryan

Wed, Jul 23, 2008 (2 a.m.)

CARSON CITY — Don’t worry, Governor — it’s a fee increase, not a tax increase.

The annual cost of filing a mining claim in Nevada will rise by $2, to $8.50, beginning Aug. 4, with the additional proceeds helping to fund the mining school at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The move should generate about $400,000 a year for the Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, which had its budget cut by about that amount in the recent round of state spending reductions ordered by Gov. Jim Gibbons, who is a graduate of the mining school.

The Commission on Mineral Resources unanimously approved the fee hike Tuesday.

But not before Nye County Recorder Byron Foster questioned whether such a move would violate Gibbons’ no-new-taxes pledge.

“Has anybody run this by the governor’s office?” he said.

Alan Coyner, administrator of the Minerals Division, said later he had “run it by the governor’s office” and had not received a response. He interpreted that as “tacit approval.”

Regardless, Coyner said, it is a fee increase and not a tax increase.

The previous hike in the filing fee was in 2001, when it rose to $6.50, Coyner said.

Public comment on the proposal showed 23 responses in favor, three against and three neutral. Barrick Gold of North America and the Newmont Mining Corp., which control about 50,000 of the 220,000 mining claims in the state, were both in favor of the increase.

Gregory Lang, Barrick’s president and chief executive, said there is a growing shortage of qualified engineers and scientists, and the Nevada mining school is “one of the premier schools in the country.” There are only 14 such programs in the United States.

UNR President Milton Glick told the commission it costs three times as much to educate a mining engineer as it does the average university student. “This is going a long way in helping us,” Glick said.

The contract between the state Minerals Division and the university to provide the additional funds to the mining school must be approved by the state Board of Examiners and the Legislative Interim Finance Committee.

The $6.50 fee per claim currently pays for operation of the Minerals Division and its program to fence off the estimated 200,000 abandoned mines across the state. In addition to the state’s fee, the federal government charges $125 per claim.