Entering Nevada’s 2025 legislative session, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s administration had big plans to reform the state’s occupational licensing boards.

In January, Lombardo said in his State of the State address that the system should be “smart, lean and productive.” The Department of Business and Industry (B&I) also released a report — conducted at the behest of the Republican governor — calling for significant reforms to the system, including merging and consolidating many of the boards, which oversee licensing for about a quarter of the state’s workforce.

Five months later, there’s nothing to show for it. Several proposals, including a comprehensive reform package brought by B&I and other last-minute deals, failed to garner enough legislative support before the session ended on June 2.

In interviews with The Nevada Independent, five people with knowledge of the monthslong saga — granted anonymity to speak candidly about behind-the-scenes negotiations — attributed the proposals’ failure to an overly ambitious initial bill that soured relationships with political power players, plus a lack of legislative support to pass even the most modest of changes (in part because of the topic’s complexity) and insufficient efforts from B&I to secure buy-in from all parties.

B&I Director Kris Sanchez strongly disagreed with that characterization. He cited conversations that went back months before the session, and said there was an overall unwillingness from board leaders to agree with even the smallest of changes.

“Most every meeting we had with an elected official, there was a recognition that boards needed to be reformed,” Sanchez said in an interview. “But the majority of [board leaders] felt like it was not necessary to do reform.”

It marked a significant defeat for the administration, which has sought to streamline the system since Lombardo took office in 2023. In his first week as governor, he signed an executive order suspending additional licensing requirements and requiring a show cause for all existing requirements. A spokesperson for the governor did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Sanchez, who became B&I director in late 2023, said moving forward, his goal is to work toward full implementation of a bill that passed during the 2023 legislative session that created a new office within B&I to oversee the boards. 

He acknowledged that those efforts will be hamstrung by the fact that the Legislature did not approve funding for new positions, but that work must continue to ensure accountability for the boards, which he believes have grown too powerful.

“We have a fourth rail of Nevada government that has historically been unaccountable to anybody,” Sanchez said. “They know and they want to cling and hang on to as much power as they possibly can.”

How we got here

For years, there has been a widespread belief among state officials that the boards and commissions system are due for an overhaul, with critics saying the amount of hoops to jump through for certain licenses is overkill. A 2020 report from the American Institutes for Research found that Nevada had more onerous requirements than several other researched states, and Nevada is also worst among all 50 states in unemployment rate.

There are 37 boards that deal with occupational licensing to enforce professional standards and ensure safety, and many other bodies are embedded within state agencies, adding up to more than 300 boards and commissions statewide. 

Occupational board members are appointed by the governor. The boards’ budgets are funded through fees paid by licensees — with annual revenue upward of $5 million for some of the largest boards — and they can hire independent lobbyists.

State officials have long said that there should be more measures to hold the boards accountable for malfeasance. They often singled out the Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners over audits that revealed it accrued significant debt, spent significant revenue on travel expenses, and did not have written policies for decades. The Board of Dental Examiners has also been scrutinized for mishandling patient complaints, mismanagement and lack of oversight. 

Sanchez said in an interview that three boards are insolvent.

"I can watch the train leave the station. I know there’s an impending train wreck, but I don’t have the authorities necessary to just go in and solve the problem."

B&I Director Kris Sanchez

The Legislature’s Sunset Subcommittee has recommended the dissolution of 35 boards and commissions since 2013, but only 13 were abolished. The boards are also required to report their financial information — but this rule is not always followed — and state officials have said existing accountability measures are insufficient.

“Unfortunately now, that oversight agenda has been delayed,” Sanchez said. “We have to ask ourselves as Nevadans: What do we want for boards and commissions in Nevada? That's really what this comes down to. Are they serving every single Nevadan well?”

However, those who spoke with The Indy anonymously said there is consensus that the boards and commissions system could be improved and streamlined — it’s just a question of what is the best way to do that.

“It just needs to be rolled out in a better fashion and thought through a little more,” one person said.

‘Died on its own weight’

In January, B&I released a 74-page report with recommendations to reform the system. They included consolidating 20 existing boards into six new boards and an advisory committee, centralizing all staff under the newly created B&I office (under existing practice, boards have their own employees) and conducting regular reviews of the bodies.

This report would eventually become the basis for SB78, the expansive bill that was B&I’s first crack at reforming the system.

It went poorly.

During a nearly four-hour hearing in the Senate Committee on Government Affairs in early April, lawmakers were skeptical of the sweeping changes being proposed.

Those in opposition included groups representing professions that would be affected — such as the Nevada Society of Certified Public Accountants and Nevada Psychological Association — as well as officials or lobbyists tied to the boards themselves, including the Nevada State Board of Examiners for Alcohol, Drug and Gambling Counselors and Board of Dispensing Opticians. 

The groups argued the new structure would make boards more inefficient, and that the changes did not consider the different regulations and ethical codes in professions that would now be licensed under the same board. 

“I’ve had so many emails, so many phone calls from so many different boards and members,”  Sen. James Ohrenschall (D-Las Vegas) said before he voted against the bill in committee.

Observers said they believe that Sanchez felt he had a mandate to make sweeping changes to the system because of the actions taken during the 2023 session, but that not everyone saw it that way.

“He believed [he had] the authority to go forward with making these huge changes.
I don't know if the legislators saw it that way,” one person said. “I think the Legislature saw it as, ‘We gave you a person to be a liaison. That was the intent.’”

Sanchez was not at B&I when that bill passed. Instead, he worked for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, where he held stints as deputy and interim director. This was his first time at the Legislature in an executive role where he was responsible for bringing forward legislation.

He disagreed with comparisons to the 2023 bill because that one focused on oversight, while this year’s related to reform. The mandate to pursue significant change, he said, came from Lombardo.

“It was a priority that the governor set early in his administration about making government more responsive, making government work for every Nevadan,” he said. “Unfortunately, our boards did not work for every Nevadan.”

Additionally, four people involved said there appeared to be little room for compromise on B&I’s part.

“His communication to the boards seemed to be a bit more directive than collaborative. It wasn't, ‘We need to do this, we have some ideas, we’d welcome your comments,’” one of the people said. “[It was], ‘Here it is, you're gonna eat it and you're gonna like it and, by the way, by implication or direct statement, keep your mouth shut and tell your lobbyists to keep their mouth shut.’ And that is not a quote, but it’s definitely what was conveyed.”

Sanchez had a different interpretation. He began meeting with boards and professional organizations last year, where he discussed plans to significantly reform the system and merge many of the boards. But he said board leaders were unwilling to compromise.

He added that the issue was exacerbated by the fact that the boards can hire paid lobbyists, an unusual arrangement for state entities, who Sanchez said often acted as an intermediary between B&I and board leaders. Dozens of lobbyists were registered as representing the boards.

“This idea that I have to go through a third party to have these conversations … it's something that I'm just not going to accept,” he said. “This was a quote — ‘As a Nevadan, this needs to happen. As a lobbyist, we’re going to have to fight you tooth and nail on this.’”

The bill eventually passed out of the Senate committee without recommendation — meaning lawmakers allowed the bill to advance through the legislative process, but not endorsing its merits — before stalling in the Senate Finance Committee. A draft amendment obtained by The Indy would have eliminated any board consolidation, but that was never adopted.

Observers believed the bill was dead on arrival, and that B&I significantly underestimated the political influence of professional organizations, who represent thousands of people who could have been affected by the bill.

“It was a big bill with big intentions and it died on its own weight,” one person said.

‘It was too late’

After it became clear that SB78 was not moving forward, other proposals emerged.

Sen. Fabian Doñate (D-Las Vegas) amended his SB425 to remove B&I’s oversight of the boards and commissions, in favor of a new office inside the Department of Administration. The office’s administrative support services would be opt-in, and the bill would include accountability measures, even for those that do not opt in.

During a hearing on the amended bill, Sanchez testified in opposition and said that “an optional system for oversight, compliance and efficiency replicates the status quo.”

But sources said that Lombardo would not sign this proposal, and it never received a committee vote.

Then, with three days to go in the session, Assembly Minority Leader Greg Hafen (R-Pahrump) introduced AB601, which would have allowed the office overseeing the boards to provide administrative services in exchange for a fee, and to inspect any records from the boards. The office would also periodically review each board and provide a recommendation about its future.

In an interview, Hafen said that he liked the concept of B&I’s bill but that there was bipartisan opposition and a “stigmatism attached to it.” He connected with the governor’s office and met frequently with officials associated with the boards to come up with his compromise bill.

“Just pounding out language that everyone could agree upon — maybe not love, but just say, ‘Hey, you know what, we do need to do this,’” Hafen said.

However, with such little time left in the session, sources said there was little chance to pass such a complex bill. It didn’t help that the bill was brought by a Republican, an inherent obstacle in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

“By that point it was too late,” one of the sources said. “I think everybody was sick of the issue.”

Hafen added that other issues were larger priorities in the final days of the session.

“The boards and commissions could wait, but our health care and our education couldn't wait,” he said.

Sanchez declined to comment on why these bills died because he was not the one bringing them forward.

Finally, on the final weekend of the session, even the most innocuous of proposals failed to advance. SB507, a budget implementation bill, would have provided B&I with 11 more employees to oversee the boards and allowed the department to prescribe a fee for services it provides. 

It unanimously passed the Senate, but did not move forward after an Assembly committee hearing with two days left in the session. During that hearing, Sanchez lamented the lack of resources to adequately oversee boards and commissions.

“I can watch the train leave the station. I know there’s an impending train wreck, but I don’t have the authorities necessary to just go in and solve the problem,” he said at the time.

The topic is not expected to go away — considering the prevailing belief that certain changes would be beneficial — but it was unclear what future reforms might look like.

“Hopefully everybody on both sides of this issue can take a step back now and sit down and say, ‘All right, what is a reasonable proposal to bring forward into the next session?’” one person said.