The governor’s office and the corrections agency jointly announced Dzurenda’s departure on Friday, saying that he was leaving to pursue new opportunities and spend more time with his family and children in Southern Nevada. The effective date of his resignation is expected to be announced in the near future, officials said.

Several of Thompson’s colleagues spoke in favor of naming the building in honor of Thompson, who was the chairman of the Assembly Education Committee and active at the community college, chairing the school’s mentor committee, hosting students at the Legislature and launching Bump Up, an African-American student success program.

“I think the writing is on the wall that it will go out of business if we can not have the same opportunities as others,” said Zakalik. “As we have seen in other industries and present in this industry, there will be a strategic approach by those who own majority licenses to essentially put them out of business.”

“As I sit here today, I am losing $1.5 [millions] or more a month on a mothballed facility. Those are very real damages,” said Groesbeck, referring to the revenue he believes he would have generated if he could have expanded the business.“This isn’t a projection. This is real dollars, real sales.”

In an at-times contentious meeting on Friday of the Committee on Local Government Finance — an appointed board under the Department of Taxation that oversees municipalities placed under ‘fiscal watch’ — district CFO Jason Goudie told the eleven-member board that while the district was on an eight-year plan to restore its budgetary reserve account to the necessary 4 percent required under state regulations, it nonetheless requires additional cuts to avoid a deficit in the 2021 fiscal year.

Lawmakers who more than doubled the per-pack cigarette tax in 2015 and approved a 30 percent tax on vaping products this session have said they want to price people out of smoking. They also want to curb a trend they said they were “horrified” to discover just a few years ago — that about 15 percent of youth are vaping. 

Former Department of Taxation Executive Director Deonne Contine said in Clark County District Court on Thursday that she believes the state did not disregard ballot question language when creating the latest marijuana licensing application, as alleged by applicants suing the state.

Cronkhite’s testimony was part of a hearing on a motion for preliminary injunction that has been ongoing since late May in Clark County District Court. Numerous business entities that sought lucrative state marijuana dispensary licenses but were rejected have filed lawsuits against the Department of Taxation, arguing the state’s process was opaque and unfair.

Thom Reilly, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, does not want to continue in the role once his contract expires in August 2020. Reilly’s chief of staff Mike Flores said the chancellor informed members of the board of regents on Wednesday about his intention not to seek a contract renewal.

The audit into the state’s Petroleum Fund, managed by the Division of Environmental Protection and formed to provide financial assistance for leaks and clean up of underground petroleum storage tanks, drew sharp responses from state officials including Gov. Steve Sisolak during its presentation last month to the Executive Board Audit Committee (composed of statewide elected officials including the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, controller and treasurer).

The Complete Count Committee, which was commissioned by Gov. Steve Sisolak and held its inaugural meeting late last month, faces linguistic and cultural barriers to get Nevadans to participate next spring as well as resistance and apathy from people concerned with privacy or too busy to respond to inquiries. 

Members of the Executive Branch Audit Committee (composed of the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer and controller) on Tuesday heard details of the dental board’s audit report, which identified numerous issues with board operations including possibly overlapping and ineffective procedures for hearing and resolving complaints and certain board members not disclosing potential conflicts of interest before casting votes or possibly using their position for personal gain.

The award wasn’t without controversy, with lawmakers asking at an Interim Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday whether the grant was singling out Latinos as vulnerable to gang activity, and staff from the attorney general’s office stressing that they did not want to promote a narrative that unaccompanied minors who are seeking asylum and are largely from Central America are gang members.

Ford’s office is planning a “multi-pronged” public information campaign to educate Nevadans regarding the changes in AB431, a bill by Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson that automatically restores the right to vote to any Nevadan previously incarcerated without requiring any court approval. The bill, which takes effect on July 1, passed the Legislature on a mostly party-line vote and was signed into law by Sisolak on May 29.

For the first time in a decade, Nevada’s minimum wage will increase; state workers will soon have the right to collectively bargain; oversight boards of legal marijuana and health care have been established; funds for teacher raises were secured, and the state is closer than ever to updating its long-criticized 52-year-old funding formula for K-12 education.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford filed a lawsuit against more than 40 opioid manufacturers and distributors on behalf of the state, saying they “created an unprecedented public health crisis for their own profit.”

Gov. Steve Sisolak said Friday he was not given advance notice of the Clark County School District’s decision to cut nearly 200 middle and high school dean positions in an effort to cover a $17 million budget shortfall — a statement that was immediately walked back by his office.

The Nevada Board of Examiners on Thursday approved the settlement, which resolves wrongful death lawsuits brought after 33-year-old Julio Cesar Montes died from injuries sustained in an altercation with another resident. The payment comes after the family sought as much as $3 million in the case.