In today’s edition: 

• The budget lay of the land
• HR system rollout is delayed
• Board of Regents opposes grad student unionization

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From the Capital Bureau Chief:

The budget has dominated legislative discussions from the beginning of this session, but with the Economic Forum projections finalized, it’s truly go-time for tackling the biggest fiscal questions.

To recap:

• The Economic Forum predicted roughly $191 million fewer dollars in the forthcoming budget cycle than expected.
  • Economists attributed the decrease to the Trump administration’s fluctuating economic policies and their effect on consumer spending.
• Over the weekend, our team explored a roughly $160 million fall in projected Nevada education funding that’s raised questions about how much the Legislature can do to expand education funding and programming. The state education fund is separate from the general fund and its shortfall is in addition to the one predicted by the Economic Forum.

Though lawmakers now have a clearer picture of the state budget, these revenue projections don’t encapsulate the cuts that may take place at the federal level, such as to Medicaid, and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) has said we may see a special session in the fall after the federal government finalizes its budget to deal with any of that fallout.

In the more immediate future, the downgraded projections are putting the squeeze on bills that propose new spending, including the two film tax credit expansion proposals.

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

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Rollout of new state HR system delayed

The long-anticipated release of a new state human resources system has been pushed back from June 30 to Oct. 1, according to a memo sent last week to state employees obtained by The Indy.

It’s the latest setback in a project that has been in the works for years. In 2023, Gov. Joe Lombardo canceled a long-troubled effort to revamp the state’s outdated HR and finance systems after $80 million had been spent. The state then embarked on a new project with an ambitious timeline that resulted in a bumpy rollout of the first phase in January.

Here’s what to know:

• The memo from Brian Bowles, the project director, indicated that the three-month delay would avoid “an unacceptable level of risk” of releasing the system at the end of a fiscal year, a time of heightened budgeting activity.
  • The rollout requires a system “blackout,” which the state wanted to avoid at the end of the fiscal year, and the upload of the new legislatively approved budget into the new system would have required “significant time and attention.”
    • Context: State officials told The Indy earlier this year that the best time to roll out such a system is either during the start of a calendar or fiscal year.
• The decision followed consultation between the project’s executive committee and the governor’s office, per the memo.
• However, the delay also means that the state will continue using its outdated HR system for a longer period. State officials have told The Indy that this system has been responsible for myriad payroll errors, such as rejecting timesheets that resulted in state workers’ payouts being delayed, and that these would persist until the new HR system went live.
  • Jack Robb, the state’s chief innovation officer, conceded to The Indy Monday that the old system is “still unstable,” but he said the state’s top human resources officials have been taking greater steps to quell any issue, including a daily 8:45 a.m. meeting focused on identifying potential HR problems and asking employees to submit and approve timesheets “earlier than ever before.”

— Eric Neugeboren

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What we’re reading and writing

Follow the Money: PACs tied to Nevada legislators, caucuses raised $7.8 million in 2024 by Eric Neugeboren

Tired: 2Pac. Wired: 19 PACs

Updating the Nevada Policy Tracker: A guide to key issues in the 2025 legislative session by The Nevada Independent Staff

The TL;DR update on major bills across health care, education, the economy and more.

Developers, conservationists clash over bill to sell public land for housing by Jennifer Solis, Nevada Current

This must’ve been a fun hearing …

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Why do bills get gutted?  

It’s a deadline day tradition — to keep their bills alive, lawmakers amend them beyond recognition.  

To get some insight into the amendment process, we talked to Sen. John Steinbeck (R- Las Vegas) whose bill, SB371, was almost entirely gutted before it passed out of committee. 

Originally, that bill sought to impose an additional penalty for crimes committed at resort hotels, but it was amended so it would now only increase the time frame someone can be charged for trespassing after being warned to stay away from a property from 24 months to 36 months:

• Steinbeck said he originally envisioned the bill as a way to crack down on crime in resorts, which he called the “lifeblood of our economy,” but knew it was a “red flag” after it was not scheduled for a hearing and other legislators raised concerns about the severity of the bill's punishments.
  • Steinbeck said rather than letting the bill die, he engaged with legislative leaders to make the bill more “friendly,” scaling it back to its current form.
    • “There's a continuous conversation,” he said. 
• A representative for the resorts industry said that this type of “friendly amendment” — in which interested parties come to a consensus on a way to amend a bill — makes it a lot easier for the Legislative Counsel Bureau to rework the bill, with less back-and-forth needed to hone in the language.
  • “It's not atypical or uncommon for a bill to be gutted, but I think this is one of those that is more of an example of good faith efforts,” said the representative, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press. 
• After being amended, the bill only had one group come out in formal opposition. The Clark County Public Defender's Office said that the bill could lead to increased incarceration for unhoused people.
  • Despite those concerns, the bill ultimately ended up passing out of the Senate unanimously, with Sen. Fabian Donate (D-Las Vegas) even signing on as a co-sponsor in support, making it bipartisan.
    • “It is less impactful, but, you know, it's about compromise,” Steinbeck said. 

— Isabella Aldrete

Board of Regents opposes collective bargaining bill for graduate students

After 90 minutes of debate during a special meeting, the Board of Regents decided to oppose AB191, which would allow graduate assistants at the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) to collectively bargain.

The bill has been exempted from legislative deadlines and awaits action in a money committee. NSHE has formally estimated that implementing it would cost nearly $6.3 million — a fiscal note that likely dims its chances of passage.  

In a lengthy public comment period on April 21, during which many students complained of harassment in their workplaces, graduate assistant Clay Renshaw disputed the “concerning” fiscal note.

Although NSHE estimates 20 additional staff members would be required to implement AB191, including seven labor attorneys, Renshaw argued that the state’s current labor relations unit “operates effectively with only two attorneys.”

“This discrepancy suggests that the fiscal impact of AB191 has been significantly overstated,” Renshaw said. 

After the vote, the Nevada Faculty Alliance criticized NSHE for not seeking alternative routes to meet the students halfway, such as submitting an amendment to adjust the fiscal note. 

“After dozens of public comments about the failure of existing systems and policies, their response was to argue workers should continue to use the same systems and policies,” Nevada Faculty Alliance co-vice chair of the government relations committee, Ian M. Hartshorn, wrote in a press release. 

— Lizzie Ramirez

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$ for Department of Corrections to avoid mass overtime payouts

After the Nevada Department of Corrections revealed last month that it would go $53 million over budget during the ongoing fiscal year because of unexpected overtime payouts, the Legislature’s money committees have approved more than $40 million in funding to boost staffing with the goal of avoiding budget overruns in the future.

Here are the details:

• The committees approved 180 new positions for the upcoming budget cycle that were not included in Gov. Joe Lombardo’s recommended budget:
  • 47 positions for the department’s central transportation unit, costing $13.6 million
  • 20 positions across two housing units at the Lovelock Correctional Center and Ely State Prison, totaling $5 million
  • 90 new correctional officer trainee positions, costing $18.8 million
  • 23 new positions at the department’s training academy, totaling $6.5 million
• Insufficient staffing has resulted in more correctional officers using overtime to fill posts that are not budgeted for. As an example, the agency’s budget provides only seven employees for its training academy, but in 2024 and 2025, it used more than 300 officers to assist in training.
• It’s a precarious time for the state to be adding new positions given the fiscal uncertainty. The new funding means that the department’s budget will be $26.5 million larger than the governor’s roughly $865 million proposed department budget.

— Eric Neugeboren

 Keeping Tabs

😡 Lack of notice draws opponents’ ire — A last-minute hearing Thursday for a resolution supporting the release of public lands in Nevada for housing development didn’t sit well with opponents.

Proposed by Assm. Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas), AJR10 urges Congress to pass Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto’s (D-NV) Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, also known as the Clark County lands bill. The hearing for AJR10 was added to the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections agenda just a few hours prior; previously, it passed out of the Assembly 36-6 without a hearing. The six opposition votes were all Democrats.

“I do think there would be … more people here in opposition if they had time and they were aware this was happening,” Vinny Spotleson, chair of the Sierra Club’s Toiyabe chapter, told lawmakers during the hearing.

📱Meta enters the Nevada airwaves — Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, is out with a new ad in Nevada that touts its Instagram accounts for teenagers, which help parents limit what content teens can see, who can contact them and how much time they spend on the platform. It comes days after a hearing on a bill from Attorney General Aaron Ford that would enact stricter guidelines on youth social media use.

🎥 Film tax credit ad in the RJ — The Sunday edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal included a full-page ad in support of SB220, the proposal from Sen. Roberta Lange (D-Las Vegas) to expand the state’s film tax credit program. Notably, it acknowledged that the proposal is essentially revenue neutral, touting a $1.02 return on investment for every $1 of tax credit provided.

💰🏋️– Nevadans “need to maybe feel a little pain” about tariffs — Keep an eye out for new billboards from the Nevada State Democratic Party in Las Vegas and Reno lambasting Gov. Joe Lombardo’s comments on Trump’s tariffs. In an interview last month with KLAS, Lombardo said, “We maybe need to maybe feel a little pain, and hopefully in the long term, it will end up being a benefit for us.”

— Amy Alonzo, Isabella Aldrete, Eric Neugeboren

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: 11
• Second house passage deadline: 18
• Sine die: 28

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And to get you going into the week, a few social media posts that caught our eye: 

• X: If you weren’t rooting for Journalism, what were you doing?
• BSky: Can’t blame a turtle for sleeping in.
• X: Go Knights!

We’ll see you Thursday.