With a month left in the 120-day session, the job hasn't gotten any easier.

At a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing, members announced that they would hear only spending reduction measures. That put the brakes on any opportunity to pitch the organization's SB352. The measure would turn back a $7,000 annual per-branch excise fee and a 2 percent payroll tax.

Bankers have argued that they were unfairly singled out in 2003 since no other industry has been saddled with a branch fee, and other businesses now pay a 0.65 percent payroll tax.

Cutting the per-branch tax would cost the state $3 million a year, Uffelman projects. Bankers had been counting on the budget surplus to help bolster their position. By some estimates that surplus is as much as $600 million.

"It's still mind boggling to me that they can stick us with excessive taxes and have a $600 million surplus," said Tod Little, president of Silver State Bank.

Last week, the Economic Forum, a group of financial experts whose projections are used by the state in setting its spending plans, forecast that the state will take in $265 million more in the next 2 1/2 years than the group had projected just six months ago. Some lawmakers, however, had estimated that the Economic Forum would forecast an extra $500 million.

Uffelman actually praised the conservative estimates from the forum. Giving lawmakers less to spend will prevent overspending and put the brakes on a financial crisis in 2007 reminiscent to the one the state experienced in 2003.

"It probably is a blessing," he said. "But does it benefit banks when I am saying I want a reduction in my taxes? No. It doesn't benefit banks at all."

Another bill -- AB554 -- also has cropped up. That would eliminate or reduce some of the bank taxes, but only for institutions with assets of less than $1 billion.

Uffelman said such a measure would limit the impact of the taxes to a handful of banks, but it would not appease the industry.

"AB554 is very disappointing if that's the outcome," he said. "Even those banks that would get it have said that's not right."

A foundation of support for the tax rollback remains strong, Uffelman said, particularly among rural lawmakers who feared that higher taxes could dissuade banks from entering small markets. Uffelman also pointed out that AB554 would not solve the problem since many rural branches are run by the state's biggest banks, such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

"With a bank branch in a rural community the cost to do business is higher because the customer base to spread that cost around is smaller," Uffelman said, adding that those facts do not change whether the branch is run by a large company or an independent operator.

He also said that AB554 would create a patchwork of rules.

"You would have a bank on one side of the street paying the $7,000 while the one next to it doesn't," Uffelman said. "Then, by the way, the credit union down the street doesn't pay anything ... You've just exacerbated the problem."

Little agreed that the rural branches are hurting disproportionately with the new taxes, but he said that -- even if they weren't -- singling out banks would still be unfair.

"We just want parity with other businesses," he said. "Personally, if I was cheating someone, I wouldn't feel good about it. It's just flat wrong. It's just flat unfair."

In other news

The parade of solid bank earnings continued for institutions doing business in Southern Nevada.

Las Vegas-based Business Bank Corp., which operates three Las Vegas-area branches and three more in Northern Nevada, recorded its most profitable quarter ever with first-quarter net income of $858,000, or 43 cents a share.

The results were up from $628,000, or 34 cents a share, for the same 2004 quarter.

Total assets grew to $377.6 million at quarter's end, up from $296.1 million a year ago. Deposits grew to $340.4 million, up from $270.9 million a year ago.

Alabama-based Colonial BancGroup, which has seven Las Vegas-area branches, said its first-quarter net income reached $52.5 million, or 37 cents per share.

That's up from $39.1 million, or 31 cents per share, reported for the first quarter 2004.

Deposits for the bank reached $12.7 billion at the end of the quarter, up from $10 billion a year ago.

Las Vegas-based Valley Bancorp, which has two Valley Bank branches in the Las Vegas area and one in Pahrump, reported first-quarter earnings of $1.1 million, or 37 cents a share, up from $622,000, or 35 cents a share, for the same 2004 quarter.

Assets grew to $311 million at the end of the quarter, up from $213 million a year ago. Deposits at the end of the quarter reached $272 million, up from $195 million for the year-ago period.

Kevin Rademacher covers utilities and finance for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4069 or by e-mail at kevinr@lasvegassun.com.