In today’s edition: 

• Gutting the boards and commissions bill?
• Lawmakers reject charter teacher raises, for now
• Pricing out the family leave bill

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From the Capital Bureau Chief:

There’s officially less than a month until sine die, which means the session has actually begun in earnest. Let’s get down to business.

One thing that caught my eye this week on the film tax credit expansion front is that the number of lobbyists working for Birtcher Development has grown from three in February (including Brandon Birtcher) to eight lobbyists as of Wednesday afternoon. Birtcher is one of the partners on Sen. Roberta Lange’s (D-Las Vegas) film tax bill, SB220.

Nevada Studios, a partnership between Birtcher, UNLV and other backers of Lange’s bill, also has one lobbyist on its payroll — former Assm. Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod (D-Las Vegas), who left the Assembly last year to make an unsuccessful bid for Clark County Commission.

Though state law dictates that lawmakers cannot serve as lobbyists the session after they are no longer in office, that cooling-off provision has a loophole that allows for such an arrangement as long as the ex-legislator does not lobby for more than one entity. 

My colleague, Eric Neugeboren, looked through state law and confirmed it (because here at The Indy, we have a trust-but-verify policy).

Bilbray-Axelrod said she met the team while running for county commission and was impressed by the opportunity for economic diversification and involvement of higher education institutions. Nevada Studios named her the senior director of community, outreach and engagement in January.

“For me, it’s all about UNLV,” Bilbray-Axelrod said. “People are always asking, ‘Do you miss [serving in the Assembly]? Do you miss it?’ And this has really satiated me because I feel like I'm still making positive change for the community.”

Also: We’ll have more details later today on Speaker Steve Yeager’s (D-Las Vegas) planned emergency BDR press conference.

As always, please send us your questions, thoughts and suggestions. You can reach me at [email protected].

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Teacher raises maintained, but no $ for charter school educators

A Nevada budget committee on Wednesday recommended continuing funding for K-12 educator raises across the next two budget years, but rejected Gov. Joe Lombardo’s request to expand those raises to charter school educators.

We’ll have more on this soon — there are hints the expansion might be resurrected — but here’s the latest:

• Lombardo’s recommended budget included making permanent the teacher and support staff raises that the Legislature approved in 2023, while also allocating $38 million for raises for charter school educators who were left out of the 2023 bill.
• Democrats who omitted the charter school raises indicated that these pay hikes were not entirely out of the question.
  • “I do think that there are some ongoing conversations that need to happen and how we would structure that,” Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) said at Wednesday’s hearing.
    • All Republicans on the panel voted against the motion. 
• Another place these raises could reemerge would be in Lombardo’s education bill, which has not been officially introduced. He indicated that charter school teacher raises would be part of the bill, in addition to $17 million for transportation to charter schools.
  • In a statement, Lombardo said he would not sign an education budget without equal pay for public charter school teachers and permanent raises for educators, including those at charter schools.
    • “All 63 legislators have been aware of my position for months, and it is my expectation that they will pass a bill that improves education for all Nevada children,” the statement said.

— Eric Neugeboren and Rocio Hernandez

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What we’re reading and writing

Analysis: Chronically absent students could cost Southern Nevada billions if left unaddressed by Rocio Hernandez

More money problems …

Lombardo economic development bill targets child care, high-tech business, rural housing by Eric Neugeboren, Isabella Aldrete and Lizzie Ramirez

No fanfare, but plenty of changes.

Nevada looks for way to continue ARPA-funded expansion of rare disease screenings for newborns by April Corbin Girnus, Nevada Current

Hospital groups want to retire the screenings.

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No more consolidating Nevada’s boards and commissions?

A draft amendment obtained by The Indy to the closely watched bill (SB78) to reform the state’s boards and commissions indicates that its most prominent — and controversial — provisions have met their demise.

Here’s what to know:

• The Department of Business and Industry (B&I) is dropping its plan to merge and consolidate many of the state’s occupational licensing and advisory boards — a key part of Lombardo’s plan to cut bureaucracy, which dates to the earliest days of his administration.
  • Board officials and their hired lobbyists strongly opposed those provisions during a contentious bill hearing last month. 
• What’s still in there? Requirements that the boards receive agency approval for any contracts and allowing the department to inspect and subpoena any board records. B&I could also periodically review each board and submit a request for termination or consolidation to the governor, but that could only be achieved legislatively.
• What now? It’s not a promising development for B&I’s long-running effort to rein in the state’s more than 300 boards and commissions, which the agency has said is akin to a “de facto fourth branch of government, operating with minimal oversight.”
  • In response to a Nevada Independent request for an interview with Director Kris Sanchez, spokesperson Teri Williams said that agency officials would “most likely address this at the next bill committee hearing, should it proceed through the process.”
• Not a surprise: The writing appeared to be on the wall after a budget subcommittee recommended against the approval of 55 new positions to oversee boards and commissions — a funding request tied to the passage of the original version of the bill.
• How we got here: A 2023 bill created a new office within B&I to oversee the boards, but that proposal lacked changes to the boards and commissions system — a gap that SB78 hoped to fill.

— Eric Neugeboren

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  Keeping Tabs

💲How much would paid family leave bill cost? — Assm. Selena La Rue Hatch’s (D-Reno) prominent bill to significantly expand paid family leave policies across the state would cost local and state agencies millions of dollars, according to fiscal notes attached to the proposal. This includes an estimated $2 million in the upcoming biennium for Clark County, $1 million for the City of Sparks, $3.7 million for the Nevada System of Higher Education and nearly $600,000 for the Department of Corrections. The Clark County School District said it could not determine a fiscal impact, but that the bill would be “harmful to employers” and would increase costs for substitute teachers.

• Context: AB388, which would grant almost all employees in Nevada with 12 weeks of paid family leave, likely comes at an inopportune time considering the significant budget strains at the state and local levels. 

❌ Immigrant Lobby Day canceled amid rising ICE concerns — The Nevada Immigration Coalition said Wednesday that they were canceling Immigrant Lobby Day, scheduled for next week, after more than 30 people were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Northern Nevada on Tuesday. The group cited growing safety concerns for immigrants and their families as reasons for the cancellation. It will mark the first session since 2011 (exempting the pandemic) without an Immigrant Lobby Day.

👮Bill curtailing use of force in schools gutted — Assm. Cecelia Gonzalez’s (D-Las Vegas) AB420, which would have required schools in Clark County to report the use of stun guns and chemical agents in schools every time one was used, has been heavily amended so that schools only need to publish an annual report relating to school police officer’s use of force. It had its first hearing this week since the amendment.  

🏆 Senate, Assembly honor past members — Nevada Assembly adopted a resolution Wednesday to the late Assm. Tyrone Thompson (D-North Las Vegas) on the Assembly Wall of Distinction. Thompson died during the 2019 session. Meanwhile, the Nevada Senate approved resolutions inducting Sens. Joyce Woodhouse (D-Las Vegas) and Pete Goichoechea (R-Elko) into its hall of fame.

🧟Open meeting law bill resurrected — A bill brought by Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office that would revise Nevada’s open meeting law was brought back to life on the Assembly floor Wednesday after it died in April. The measure, AB64, would exempt licensees (such as casinos) from being subject to open meeting laws during initial disciplinary investigations, unless the licensee requests it. It would also restrict certain public comment during contested hearings and clarify that individuals making public comment do not gain immunity from civil defamation suits. 

• The bill, however, would also require remote meetings to have a physical location for public participation.
• Yeager told The Indy that a request for a waiver was submitted a while back to give Ford’s office more time to work through potential amendments, but was only just now approved. 

— Eric Neugeboren and Isabella Aldrete

Looking Ahead

• Tuesday, May 13, 6:30 p.m.: The Nevada Independent is hosting a conversation with Nevada's legislative leaders at the National Automobile Museum. 

Days until: 

• Second committee passage deadline: 8
• Second house passage deadline: 15
• Sine die: 26

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And to ease you into the weekend, a few social media posts that caught our eye: 

• X: Congratulations to photojournalist David Calvert!
• BSky: Gotta love those redactions.
• X: Free treats make everything better.

We’ll see you next week.