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The clock is ticking.
With fewer than four days until the Legislature’s 120-day session ends June 5, lawmakers are finalizing bills, amendments and making last-minute deals in an attempt to get their legislation and the state budget across the finish line.
As a backdrop to the negotiations, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo has sparred for weeks with Democrats in control of both legislative chambers, with tensions most recently escalating into a veto of one of the state’s five major budget bills Thursday night.
But negotiations continue on a host of other major issues — from a major expansion of film tax credits to a public subsidy for a Las Vegas baseball stadium — as legislators head into the final days of session.
Check back for updates including highlights of bill signings, measures advancing through the Legislature and more. For the latest on what bills Lombardo has vetoed, click here.
THURSDAY
White Pine School District pushing for $60M in funding to replace century-old schools
A day after lawmakers in an Assembly committee moved to advance a bill that would appropriate funding for an Elko County School District tribal school that officials said was “literally falling apart,” state senators showed less enthusiasm for a similar ask from the White Pine County School District to replace two schools that are more than a century old.
David E. Norman Elementary School dates back to 1909 and White Pine Middle School dates back to 1913. The district said both schools have “asbestos-laden infrastructure in floors, walls, plumbing and ceiling,” lack fire suppression systems and are limited or noncompliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards. Norman Elementary also struggles with poor indoor air quality and inadequate systems to allow fresh outside air inside.
SB100, sponsored by Sen. Pete Goicochea (R-Eureka), would allocate $60 million to the district to construct a new elementary school. The district, which includes roughly 1,200 students, is proposing to replace the existing schools with a single school to keep costs down.
Representatives for the district said it has previously sought other forms of funding, including applying for a state school construction fund, seeking public-private partnerships and looking into a variety of loan programs, but said those efforts were either unsuccessful or came short of funds needed to finance a new school. Goicochea added that White Pine County has the highest property tax rate in the state, but Paul Johnson, the district’s chief financial officer, said it isn’t enough and the district can’t ask voters for more support because the tax rate is at the cap.
“$60 million is too steep and it’s just mathematically impossible given our current tax base and the tax structure for us to raise the funds on our own. So we’re asking for help,” Johnson said. “We don’t care how the help comes. We will embrace whatever help that we have.”
Sen. Marilyn Dondero Loop (D-Las Vegas), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said she supports education projects because she feels lawmakers should be helping all kids, but noted there are many similarly aged schools across the state also in need of repairs and replacements.
“I think the hard thing is if I and the other legislators start to say, ‘How do we pick and choose our favorite kid?’” she said.
Other committee members suggested finding other “creative solutions” such as asking for support from neighboring counties and local mines and diversifying White Pine County’s economy. They also referenced AB519, which, if passed, in addition to appropriating $64.5 million for the construction of a new school in the Owyhee tribal community, would allow rural counties to raise property taxes and establish an account to assist rural counties in financing school district capital projects.
The bill would appropriate $25 million for capital projects for schools located on qualified tribal lands, and another $25 million for capital projects at all other schools. This account would act as a matching fund for the rural counties that decide to enact a tax rate outside of the cap for purposes of school district capital projects.
White Pine Superintendent Adam Young said while that helps, it’s not sufficient on its own.
“We’re open to many creative solutions, but it is going to really be necessary for some type of an appropriation to occur in order for us to move forward,” he said.
— Rocio Hernandez
Policy that sought to reduce fees for commissary is heavily scaled back
Nick Shepack, deputy director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center, is hoping that lawmakers pass SB416 to eliminate markups on hygiene products sold at the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) facilities, remove co-pays for medical services for those in custody and end room and board fees for offenders who work while incarcerated.
The bill would also group commissary products in with “inmate personal property,” which has strict regulations regarding storage to “ensure that no offender is in possession of more property than can be safely possessed.” Excessive personal property is confiscated.
Shepack presented an amendment earlier this week that calls for all commissary items to be in compliance with an NDOC administrative regulation that authorizes inmates to store personal property in one state-provided locker at the time of arrival and inside one fire-retardant box, which must be purchased. The bill passed out of the Senate on Thursday on an 18-3 vote.
Shepack wrote in a presentation that the policy was originally introduced as an aggressive attempt to “identify alternative revenue solutions for the inequitable and inefficient fees” accrued by inmates and families including cremation costs, 66 percent markups on commissary and electricity surcharges.
— Naoka Foreman
Lawmakers want to extend resources for young adults formerly in foster care
Sen. Rochelle Nguyen (D-Las Vegas) is sponsoring SB380, which would allow the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services to extend past a 2025 launch date for an Extended Young Adult Support Services Program that was legalized in 2021 through SB397.
The policy allows child welfare agencies to submit a request to the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services to begin servicing Nevadans formerly in foster care who are younger than 22 with housing and financial assistance if sufficient resources are available.
If the request is approved, the division would be required to submit a report to lawmakers every six months, starting in 2024, that must include:
- The status of the implementation of the program;
- The progress of efforts to allow young adults to remain in foster care;
- Recommendations concerning additional programs to allow young adults to remain in foster care and;
- The progress of efforts to secure federal funding for the program.
— Naoka Foreman
Baby bonds bill passes a first vote after new language makes room for a lottery approach
The “baby bonds bill” (AB28) that seeks to help close the widening racial wealth gap in Nevada passed out of the Assembly on a party-line 28-14 vote Thursday after an amendment authorized a potential lottery for applicants. The change also caps the administrative cost of the policy at 5 percent of the money appropriated for the program.
Under the bill, Treasurer Zach Conine (the bill’s sponsor) can determine the number of beneficiaries for a particular year for whom the Trust Fund is available and select by lottery those who will receive a $3,200 bond that they could cash out at age 18, which is estimated to reach $10,000 to $13,000 each.
The program is designed to give Nevada children born into low-income families a financial boost as they enter adulthood to start a business, buy a home, attend post-secondary school or make any purchase or investment in “financial assets that provide long-term gains to wages and or wealth.”
— Naoka Foreman
Emergency rural hospital designations
AB277, a bill that would give certain rural hospitals an extra safety net by designating them as “emergency rural hospitals” — allowing them to shut down some in-patient services while keeping the rest of the health care facility open — was heard in the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services last Thursday after passing unanimously in the Assembly on May 30.
Bill supporters said it could help address health care needs in rural areas such as Tonopah, which lost its only regional hospital in 2015.
“Be afraid, be very afraid. Once you’re south of Hawthorne, the next hospital is in Las Vegas,” lobbyist and retired physician Dr. Barry Cole said. “We need any options we can [get]; it was bad enough we lost Tonopah.”
— Carly Sauvageau
WEDNESDAY
Lombardo signs bill protecting transgender and gender-nonconforming inmates
As states across the country are considering legislation aimed at restricting access to gender-affirming care, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a bill Wednesday that would require Nevada’s Department of Corrections to adopt standards and protections for transgender, gender nonconforning and gender nonbinary incarcerated individuals.
Sponsored by Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas), SB153 marks the first of three significant LGBTQ protection measures proposed this session to be signed into law. The governor has until Saturday to decide whether to approve a second bill protecting health care providers offering gender-affirming care (SB302) that passed on party-lines out of the Assembly and Senate. Supporters of the measure say that without it, providers may leave the state, further exacerbating the health care shortage.
The third measure, SB163, would require health insurance companies to cover treatment of conditions relating to gender dysphoria, a condition where individuals experience a mismatch between their gender identity and assigned gender at birth. The bill awaits a vote in the Senate.
Historically, insurance companies have exempted and classified such treatments as “cosmetic” and forced patients to pay for them out of pocket. However, in the wake of Nevada’s justice system siding with a patient suing a state-sponsored insurance plan for not covering gender-affirming care, advocates have noted that lack of coverage would be harmful for those in need of gender-affirming care.
—- Tabitha Mueller
Bill seeks $116K to reform sexual education
The Assembly Ways and Means Committee advanced a bill Wednesday that, if passed, would automatically enroll all eligible students into sexual education classes unless their parent or guardian specifies otherwise.
Nevada is one of the few states that requires schools to get written permission from parents or guardians before students can participate in sex education classes, also known as an opt-in system.
The bill, AB357, would convert Nevada to an opt-out system, in which parents or guardians would need to inform school officials that they don’t want their student to participate in sex ed instruction.
The bill would require the teaching of factual, evidenced-based sex education based on statewide standards set by Nevada’s Council to Establish Academic Standards for Public Schools.
“By recognizing the importance of updated sex education standards, we are taking a significant step toward ensuring the well-being of future success of our students,” said Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod, (D-Las Vegas) who is sponsoring the bill.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert estimates it would cost almost $116,000 to develop the standards and provide the training necessary to make sure they are implemented correctly.
Opponents of the bill were concerned that the council’s standards would take away power from local sexual education advisory committees, and that the change from an opt-in to an opt-out system would decrease parental involvement.
— Rocio Hernandez
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