The state of Nevada did not release its annual financial report for fiscal year 2023 until mid-August of this year— more than two years, or 777 days, after the budget period ended — making it the last state in the country to do so.

The state’s yearslong delay was criticized in an annual analysis released Thursday by Truth in Accounting, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks state-by-state finances. CEO Sheila Weinberg said delays can force state officials to make spending decisions based on an outdated financial picture.

“Not having timely information, you can't make knowledgeable decisions,” Weinberg said.

The annual financial report is the most in-depth analysis of the state’s finances and is published by the state controller’s office. Delays in publishing it result in an incomplete look at the state’s financial system. The late filing for 2023 was the state’s most significant delay even as the release schedule had become progressively slower in recent years.

The trend largely began at the onset of the pandemic, but it has become much worse. The fiscal year 2023 report took more than two times as long to be released as the fiscal year 2021 report.

Still, the state has been able to avoid the most drastic negative implications of delayed reports, such as a lower bond rating. Downturns in the state’s bond rating can negatively affect its ability to borrow money, and when a state’s annual financial report is not completed, the credit rating agency is going off of incomplete information, state officials said. However, they added they are in frequent contact with creditors, who also have other metrics to measure the state’s financial health.

Controller Andy Matthews, a Republican who entered office in 2023, expressed optimism that the ship has been righted. His office recently added more staff and has largely finished its part of the massive project to upgrade the state’s financial system, lessening the burden on his staff. Matthews also said the governor’s office has helped ensure compliance from state agencies, which must report data for the report to be compiled.

There was previously only one employee in the office with the authority to review the report, but the Legislature approved more than $760,000 in funding this year to quadruple that number. There is a new deputy position to oversee the report’s creation, a new accountant with review authority and an existing worker who was reclassified to grant them that power.

“If you only have one person who’s even allowed to review, that’s obviously a bottleneck problem,” Matthews told The Nevada Independent.

During a February budget hearing, Matthews said the pandemic was responsible for some of the delays, but he acknowledged “a sort of complacency set in” at the controller’s office and in state agencies that send information to his office.

“A mentality was created among many state agencies where financial reporting had been late the last couple of years, so ‘what is the big deal if we continue to be late?,’” Matthews told lawmakers. “The state controller's office was not as assertive as it needed to be in terms of working with those state agencies to get that information.”

He also said the significant state worker churn has led to inaccuracies in information that the agencies provided and a loss of institutional knowledge. Since 2019, there has been 100 percent turnover in the team responsible for creating the report, Matthews told legislators.

“When you lose that institutional knowledge and skill set, those challenges are gonna permeate across state government,” Matthews said.

Nevada was one of seven states to not have released its report for fiscal year 2024 by Aug. 25, according to the report from Truth in Accounting, which gave Nevada a C for its financial health. The report included all government reports released as of Aug. 25. It did not include Nevada’s 2023 report, which was completed on Aug. 15, but it has not been published online because of the state’s cyberattack.

“Governments are large businesses, and … if a corporation did not issue their financial report, within 100 days, much less two years, there would be very large consequences,” Weinberg said.

However, Matthews said that the state has so far avoided dire consequences from the delayed reporting process, and he credited a bipartisan effort between Democratic lawmakers, his office and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo to expedite future reports. 

“We’re in the process, I believe, of writing a really great bipartisan success story,” he said.