With less funding available because of a projected decrease in state revenues experts attributed to the Trump administration’s economic policies, lawmakers can’t pass record-breaking increases to education funding or state worker pay raises similar to those in 2023. 

Instead, the five budget bills making their way through the Legislature this week largely maintain existing funding amounts. Legislative finance committees are still reviewing more than $900 million in legislator spending requests, but those will likely face an uphill battle in an era of belt-tightening.

“I would love to be able to [pass these bills],” said Assm. Daniele Monroe-Moreno (D-North Las Vegas), the chair of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. “This isn’t going to be the session for that.”

One of the five budget bills — the capital improvement program (CIP) bill — requires a two-thirds majority vote for approval, meaning it will require Democrats to secure at least some Republican support to advance and may end up as a bargaining chip in final negotiations as it has in the past.

In 2023, disagreements between Senate Republicans and Democratic legislative leaders led to the failure of the CIP bill in the final hours of the session.

Though Gov. Joe Lombardo and legislative Democrats had reached an agreement to pass the measure funding state public works and construction, Senate Republicans blocked the measure from moving forward.

Then-Senate Minority Leader Heidi Gansert said her caucus was seeking funding for charter school teacher pay and capital projects as well as graduate medical education programs. In the nearly two-hour-long special session held the day after the budget bill died, former Sen. Scott Hammond (R-Las Vegas) defected and gave the Democrats the one vote they needed to pass the bill.

This year, fears of such a standoff appear to be less prominent, especially as legislative leaders have said that communications with the governor’s office have improved and Lombardo has not threatened to veto the state budget if his priorities aren’t passed — an overt threat his office issued in 2023.

Read about each of the five budget implementation bills below, or click one of the links below to jump to a specific bill. Please note that all numbers have been rounded for ease of explanation:

• K-12 funding
• The Appropriations Act
• State worker pay
• Capital Improvement Program
• The Authorizations Act

K-12 FUNDING (SB500)

The upcoming two-year budget is set to have minimal increases in per-pupil funding, much to the dismay of public education advocates who want the state to embark on an aggressive plan to raise funding levels.

In comparison to the last biennium, the budget would only increase the amount allocated to the Pupil-Centered Funding Plan — the state funding formula for K-12 education — by about $290 million. From the 2021-2023 budget cycle to 2023-2025, it grew by about $2 billion.

The state Constitution requires legislators to pass the K-12 education budget before all other spending bills. The Senate Committee on Finance passed the bill along party lines Tuesday, with Republicans voicing hesitation about charter school funding — though the bill allocates money for charter school students and separate charter funding efforts are making their way through the legislative process.

“I do not feel that this budget represents equity for our charter school students,” Sen. Carrie Buck (R-Henderson) said. 

The dispute over funding for charter schools exploded earlier this month after Democrats on a budget subcommittee blocked Lombardo’s request for $38 million in raises for charter school teachers, who were left out of a 2023 bill that provided historic pay raises to K-12 teachers. Democrats said the raises weren’t out of the question, but they wanted to take a closer look at accountability metrics and how the money was allocated. 

Soon after, Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) and Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) each released separate proposals that provided these funds, albeit with a different funding mechanism than Lombardo proposed (and matching one that was used to disburse raises two years ago). 

Policymakers have been conservative on education funding this session, especially after a forecast from state finance analysts found that the state education fund is expected to bring in about $160 million less in revenue than expected during the upcoming budget cycle. To meet those funding gaps, the budget proposes pulling more than $242 million from the State Education Stabilization Account — representing about a fourth of the $850 million in reserves. 

Here are some of the toplines: 

• Total funding: Lawmakers allocated about $11.5 billion to the Pupil-Centered Funding Plan over the upcoming biennium, slightly higher than the more than $11.2 billion allocated during the 2023 session. The funding plan pulls money from the state’s general fund and the State Education Fund, which comprises local and state tax revenue, such as sales, room and marijuana taxes, among others. 
• Per-pupil funding: Per-pupil funding continues to lag by thousands of dollars behind the amount recommended by the Commission of School Funding — an 11-member body charged with assessing the state’s education finances. The education budget bill calls for per-pupil funding of $9,416 in the upcoming fiscal year and $9,486 in the following year, an increase of $2 and $72, respectively, from the current fiscal year.
• Adjusting for county size: The specific amounts allocated to each student vary by county because of increased costs associated with operating schools in rural areas. In Clark County, which has more than 300,000 students, the adjusted base per-pupil funding is $9,501, while in Eureka County, which has about 330 students, the adjusted amount reaches a high of $35,764. 
• Weighting the base: The amount allocated to each public school student may differ for certain students. For example, student English language learners receive the base per-pupil funding plus extra money calculated as an additional weight of 0.45, meaning that schools will receive a 1.45 multiplier for those students. For at-risk students, that additional weight is 0.35 and for gifted and talented pupils, that weight is 0.12. These numbers are the same as the last budget cycle. 
• Special education: The proposal would also include about $517 million over next two budget years to support students with disabilities, an increase of about $20 million from the ongoing budget cycle.
• Transportation and food: Additional money is allocated toward food services and transportation, but once again, varies according to the school district. Clark County — the largest district in the state — receives the highest amount of those extra funds, receiving more than $135 million for transportation costs.

THE APPROPRIATIONS ACT (AB591)

This $12 billion bill encapsulates the funding requests approved by money committees this session and is funded through tax revenues during the next two years. But earlier this month, state economists projected those revenues would come in $191 million lower than the original estimates in December because of economic uncertainty brought on by the Trump administration.

In anticipation, lawmakers cut more than $450 million from the governor’s recommended budget, a Nevada Independent analysis found.

Here are some of the highlights of AB591: 

• $2.6 billion will go to the newly created Nevada Health Authority, which will house Medicaid and a newly created Office of Mental Health, during the next budget cycle. Those funds will support everything from resources for people with developmental disabilities to health care facilities regulators, and about $2.48 billion will go toward Nevada Medicaid.
• $358 million toward UNR and $552 million toward UNLV
• $262 million for Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services 
• $57 million for the Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services
• $165 million to the Division of Parole and Probation
• $26 million toward the Department of Indigent Defense Services

STATE WORKER PAY BILL (AB592)

It’s been all quiet on the state worker pay front this session — a far cry from 2023, when the state worker pay bill included the largest state worker pay increases in decades.

The bill largely contains existing language from the 2023 pay bill, in addition to the salaries for certain unclassified workers (typically, those in specialized or management positions) during the upcoming two-year budget cycle.

Some of the only new language compared with the 2023 pay bill was language allowing the governor to appoint more than one deputy director in the Governor’s Finance Office and changes in pay and employee designations for Senate and Assembly workers, which had not been amended since 2001. See those changes here.

However, this session, the issue of state worker pay fell to the back burner amid the state’s precarious budget situation. Lombardo did not make any new pledges related to state worker pay during his State of the State address after doing so during his 2023 remarks.

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (SB502)

In an increase from the ongoing two-year budget cycle, the state’s upcoming capital improvement program sets aside more than $1.5 billion for executive branch projects — compared with about $1.3 billion in the 2023 bill — along with $225 million for legislative branch projects, an increase of about $10 million from two years ago.

These initiatives are funded through a mix of appropriations from the general fund and general obligation bonds, which are paid off through property taxes.

This bill requires a two-thirds vote because it includes the renewal of a statewide property tax. 

Here are notable projects:

• $14.6 million for renovation and rehabilitation of the Hobart Dam, which is near Carson City
  • The governor’s budget approved $4 million to go toward this project and the money committees allocated an additional $10 million to replace funding that the Federal Emergency Management Agency rescinded
• $71.2 million to purchase five office buildings in Las Vegas
• $22.4 million to purchase an office in Reno
• $27 million for the Department of Corrections for evaporative cooling and housing projects
• $381.8 million in bonds for the Southern Forensic Facility, an inpatient psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas
• $6.7 million from general obligation bonds for two Department of Motor Vehicles projects, including $4.9 million for Central Services and Records Division renovation in Carson City
• $6 million in bonds for cultural centers and a historic preservation grant program 
• $10.4 million in bonds for the Lake Tahoe Basin environmental improvement program

THE AUTHORIZATIONS ACT (SB501)

This bill authorizes state agencies to expend federal funds and money generated from certain fees — essentially, money that is not appropriated from the general fund and Highway Fund.

The act authorizes funding for 404 budget accounts totaling about $33.8 billion over the next two-year budget cycle.

Here are some major authorizations included in the bill:

• $16 billion for programs through the Nevada Health Authority, including, the state-managed public health care option program, Nevada Medicaid, which makes up the bulk of the authorizations at more than $12.6 billion, and the prescription drug rebate program
• $717 million in Highway Fund authorizations under the transportation administration budget account
• $775 million for COVID-19 relief programs in the governor’s office, a pot of money that includes federal relief funds from the American Rescue Plan
• $893 million in tobacco settlement funding to support the Nevada Attorney General Office’s special litigation and investigations unit budget account and associated disbursements, including a new investigation unit budget account
• $75 million to the Gaming Control Board and more than $1.3 million to the Nevada Gaming Commission
• $211 million for the Department of Public Safety, including more than $12 million for the Nevada Highway Patrol Division and almost $35 million for the Central Repository for Nevada Records of Criminal History.

Updated at 9:00 a.m to correct the increase in the Pupil-Centered Funding Plan over the last biennium