Those of us of a certain age remember Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill” explanation of how bills become law, and how the executive branch has veto power to stop a bill. 

But Schoolhouse Rock left out all the other ways that bills can die in the process — including the impact of fiscal notes that leave good policy doomed in committees. In looking ahead to the 84th Nevada legislative session, we are in need of fiscal note reform.

There are many ways that bills die in the 120-day session. Some bills are dead on arrival (never get a hearing) while some die in committee. Some bills are exempt from the major process deadlines if they might impact state or state agency budgets.

Bills with budget implications are tagged with a dreaded fiscal note and get referred to their own version of death row in the Senate Finance or Assembly Ways and Means committees. Some bills languishing in these committees might be lucky and be one of the many backlogged bills heard in marathon end-of-session money committee hearings, but most will quietly die without their fiscal note deliberated.

Fiscal notes are a common and necessary feature of state budgets. They ask state agencies to project the fiscal impact of a new law. New policies and programs can have actual costs to implement and it can be reasonable for our already stretched agencies to ask for more staffing to implement them. But in tight budget years, a fiscal note can act as an unofficial veto, outside the oversight of elected legislators. Schoolhouse Rock never told us that unelected state officials and agencies have veto power.

Agencies are not obligated to justify or even itemize their fiscal notes, allowing legislators to justify putting that bill lower on priority lists. Some fiscal notes might be included (and inflated) because they are there for a specific political purpose. Weaponizing fiscal notes is a way to ensure a bill dies in a money committee, even when the requested amounts are, on their face, unreasonable or based on worst case scenarios.

In Nevada, the procedural check and balance is supposed to be the Governor’s Finance Office, which determines if a fiscal note is “reasonable.” Since most state agencies fall under the authority of the executive branch, the executive branch, in effect, polices itself. In tough budget years, count the fiscal note as a kind of double veto power for the executive, which can make fiscal notes even more politically charged. 

For advocates wanting to appeal and get their bill a hearing despite a fiscal note, they are told to negotiate with the agency that added the fiscal note and hopefully get the agency to amend or remove the note completely. Sometimes this means arguing with state bureaucrats insulated from electoral pressures.

Either through negotiations with agencies (or in the absence of negotiations), bills start magically changing to remove major policy sections, being turned into “studies” or delaying their implementation date to the next biennial budget cycle just so the bill doesn’t completely die. If you’ve ever watched an “after dark” money committee hearing during the last week of session, you’ll have noticed the last-minute conceptual amendments being introduced — usually changes that will reduce or remove fiscal notes.

No matter how sound and bipartisan the policy, fiscal notes can doom bills, unless they have the patronage of powerful legislative actors or the governor. The process of leaving all budget bills to the last hours of a session means that even the priorities of the governor and legislative leaders won’t make it to the end.

In addition to outright politicization, fiscal notes serve as a way to circumvent the appropriations process. Let’s say an agency has five full-time staff members, but it really wants 10. Even if an agency can handle an extra report or process required in a bill, it might say in a fiscal note it will need five new hires. The fiscal note offers an opportunity to request more resources even if those resources weren’t in the governor’s recommended budget. This goes against the state’s basic budgeting process where the governor proposes and the Legislature appropriates. And sometimes, this can feel like an abuse of the trust on which the democratic process relies.

This is what happened to AB191, which would have given the right to collectively bargain to Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) professionals and graduate assistants. NSHE’s exaggerated fiscal note suggested it needed to hire a law firm’s worth of legal staff to implement the bill’s provisions (along with computers and a lot of professional development costs for the labor experts it needed to hire). Although the bill merely gives the right to collectively bargain for these state public employees, NSHE’s note was constructed to assume anyone employed by NSHE (even those not included in the bill) would immediately need a bargaining agreement. Thus, AB191 was sentenced to Ways and Means.

To attempt to get a hearing, faculty and graduate assistants were told to negotiate with NSHE to see if NSHE (their bosses) would reduce the fiscal note. NSHE decided not to come to any negotiating table (not even to discuss amendments to the bill). NSHE also ensured AB191’s demise by having the Board of Regents vote to oppose the bill, justified by NSHE’s explanation of its original fiscal note. At least from NSHE’s perspective, there was no more need to discuss AB191 after this vote.

Thus, the fiscal impact and actual fiscal costs could not be openly deliberated or debated in a legislative committee. The policy of not hearing any bills needing appropriations until major budgets are closed means most bills have little time for due consideration at the mad rush at the end of session.

But the death row of the money committees doesn’t have to be our reality if we enact some reforms in the fiscal note process. We only have to look to our neighbor to the east for some possible fixes. Utah explicitly bans state agencies from trying to influence the passage or non-passage of any bill. The state asks agencies to look back on similar bills from previous years and justify any changes from previous fiscal notes. Fiscal analysts must include detailed notes about why a fiscal impact is justified.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Utah legislators are empowered in the fiscal note process. They can place a hold on the note, and even introduce evidence that points to a different conclusion. This restores the role of our elected officials in the fiscal process and avoids placing too much power with the executive branch to green light or kill bills that state agencies find inconvenient or just don’t like for political or ideological reasons. 

Our friends at Schoolhouse Rock weren’t wrong. Bills should come from the Legislature and should be vetoed or signed by the governor without other veto players along the way. Common sense reforms can get us there, and can help Nevada have more sensible policy. 

Amy Pason is an associate professor of communication studies at UNR who studies advocacy and deliberation. She currently chairs the Nevada Faculty Alliance’s Government Relations Committee. She can be reached on BlueSky: apason.bsky.social. 

Ian M. Hartshorn is an associate professor of political science at UNR who studies labor and working-class politics internationally. He is a former co-chair of the American Political Science Association’s Labor Politics Group and serves as a vice chair of the Nevada Faculty Alliance’s Government Relations Committee. 

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