The two Clark County public defenders who argued the case — Nancy Lemke and Christy Craig — told lawmakers during a Wednesday meeting of an interim committee studying pretrial detention that multiple changes in law, and potentially enhanced court system funding, were needed to see the state fully comply with the court’s decision and new framework for assessing cash bail.
Members of the Interim Finance Committee — a group of lawmakers that oversees spending and grants between legislative sessions — met on Monday to officially approve more than $118.5 million dollars in federal grants to help fund the response to COVID-19, including a sizable $96 million for contact tracing and expanded laboratory testing.
Attorneys for the Legislative Counsel Bureau told lawmakers on an interim redistricting commission on Wednesday that the coronavirus pandemic, and subsequent delays in scheduled 2020 census activities, meant that the state would not receive demographic data needed for the redistricting process until after the end of the 120-day legislative session in 2021.
Members of the Interim Finance Committee (a committee of lawmakers that oversees and approves state spending during the interim period between legislative sessions) voted to approve moving the reserve funds during its meeting on Monday morning — a process that began last week with the declaration of a “fiscal emergency” and estimation that the state was facing between a $741 million and $911 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year ending on June 30.
Of the 42 seats in the state Assembly, almost a quarter will be decided in the primary election. Four races will actually be decided in the primary — including three incumbent Republicans fending off challengers — because no other candidates filed to run in those districts. Another five races will effectively be decided in the primary, given vast disparity in voter registration totals making it all but impossible for the opposing party to gain a foothold.
Democratic Assemblywoman Maggie Carlton, chair of the committee, said the move was a first for the panel under a new process created last legislative session. It comes after Gov. Steve Sisolak declared a fiscal emergency on Monday on the basis that the state could face a shortfall of between $741 million to $911 million, or about a fifth of the state’s budget for the fiscal year ending June 30.
Sisolak made the announcement in a press release on Monday, saying that state fiscal analysts estimated revenue shortfall to be between $741 million to $911 million for the fiscal year ending on June 30 — nearly a fifth of the state’s $4.5 billion 2020 budget.
The Interim Finance Committee will take up the topic during a scheduled meeting on Wednesday, May 13 — the first step in transferring funds from the “Rainy Day” fund to battered state agency budget accounts that have seen precipitous drops in tax revenues over the last two months. The news was first reported by KLAS 8 News Now.
Three key Nevada lawmakers who have endorsed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s bid for president say they are satisfied with his response to an allegation that he sexually assaulted staffer Tara Reade in 1993.
A Clark County judge has ruled that a supermajority provision in the state Constitution does not apply to a law that froze the growth of the Opportunity Scholarship program
Staff of the state’s Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR), including new Director Heather Korbulic, briefed state lawmakers on the agency’s actions to address the backlog of claims and complaints about accessing the system during a meeting of the Interim Finance Committee on Thursday.
During the reporting period, which ran from Jan. 1 to the end of March, legislative candidates reported raising just over $1.5 million, spent $1.26 million and reported holding just over $5.12 million in cash on hand.
Kelvin Atkinson, a former top Nevada state lawmaker who was convicted last year for campaign finance and wire act violations, was granted an early compassionate release Friday evening by a federal judge because of concerns about his possible susceptibility to COVID-19.
Of the approved disbursements, $1.25 million will be the state’s match for a federal emergency management grant, while the remaining $5 million will go directly to the emergency management division for the acquisition of emergency supplies and the “immediate assistance” of state, local, county and tribal governments.
Empty casinos and shrinking hotel occupancy rates caused by fears of the spreading novel coronavirus will have ripple effects beyond mass layoffs and plummeting stock prices — the pandemic also threatens to kneecap state tax revenue and threaten funding levels for education, health care and a host of other government services.
With help from a state grant, disability rights advocates along with the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities are convening roundtables with employers to discuss roadblocks to hiring people with disabilities. Beginning in August, they plan to work with legislators to submit bill draft requests addressing wage and employment challenges.
Even though state lawmakers in 2019 approved a mandatory paid leave bill — making Nevada just the 12th state to require paid time off for workers — adoption of a federal paid leave policy could still have a sizable effect on the state.
Dozens of candidates — including 52 in populous Clark County — waited until the final day of the filing period to declare their candidacy. The end of filing means that campaign season — though hampered by the spread of the novel coronavirus — is officially underway ahead of the June 9 primary election and Nov. 3 general election.
