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Carson Dispatch

The Nevada Legislature convenes in Carson City
Tom R. Smedes
/
AP

Class is in session. And, so far, the kids are playing nice

The first weeks of a legislative session are more akin to the beginning of a new school year. There's a sea of names and faces to remember, some old and many new. Lobbyists and lawmakers ride elevators, doing their best to navigate the halls looking for committee rooms and offices. Administration officials give detailed presentations to lawmakers on state government operations that sound a lot like professors detailing course syllabi. A bell even rings when the Senate is about to convene.

It's also when we get our first glimpse of the priorities that determine what bills may become law, and — despite a bitter, partisan 2022 election cycle — the movers and shakers in Carson City seem to agree on a host of the state's top issues.

According to Nevada's Economic Forum, a group of financial prognosticators, more than $11 billion should flow into state coffers over the next two years, and policymakers seem eager to use the money to help families and businesses.

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Improving Nevada's Schools

It's no secret that Nevada's K-12 public schools need attention. The results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), otherwise known as The Nation's Report Card, found that math and reading scores for the state’s 4th- and 8th-grade students continue to lag the rest of the country, despite gains in graduation rates over the last decade. Nevada's schools have also suffered from chronic underfunding, spending roughly $11,000 per year on the average student — approximately $4,400 below the national average.

As part of an effort to overhaul the state's public schools, lawmakers undertook a significant reform in 2019, when they revamped how the state pays for K-12 education. Under the old Nevada Plan, funding was appropriated based on district enrollment numbers and whether schools qualified for specific programming such as English Language Learner classes. The new Pupil-Centered Funding Plan sends money to districts based on specific student needs. Children who don't need more help receive a base amount of funding; extra dollars are distributed to schools where students need other services, such as special education or gifted programs. Many states have recently adopted funding mechanisms like this in order to increase student equity. Despite the reforms, lawmakers did not increase funding for education by any significant amount and, therefore, little changed.

Under a proposal by Governor Joe Lombardo, lawmakers would appropriate an additional $2 billion to K-12 schools, or an increase of about $2,000 per student. The 22-percent increase would mark the largest increase in state support for education in history.

During his State of the State address in January, new Republican Governor Joe Lombardo told lawmakers he wanted to raise the bar on expectations and accountability for Nevada schools.

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The Nevada Legislature opens for its 82nd Session. What legislators expect to see this year

"I'm exceedingly proud to announce that my budget fully funds the targeted weights in the Pupil-Centered Funding Plan, streamlining those dollars to the classrooms and students who need it the most," Lombardo said. "After years of celebrating a hundred dollars here and there, this investment is truly historic."

For Democrats, Lombardo's proposal has promise. They have long sought more money for public schools, but there's concern the dollars might not flow to public school classrooms. Lombardo has also called on lawmakers to double funding for Opportunity Scholarships — the state's only school voucher program.

For Speaker of the Assembly Steve Yeager, a Democrat from Las Vegas, it's an exciting proposal, but more specifics are needed.

"We are pleased to hear that the hard work of legislative Democrats over the past several years has put Governor Lombardo in a position to propose an additional $2 billion to fund public education over the next biennium," Yeager says. "We will, however, continue to have grave concerns about proposals that would divert tax dollars from public schools to private institutions."

Specifically, Democrats want to see more money for teachers.

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Before the start of the school year, the Clark County School District had nearly 1,400 classroom vacancies. As of this year, there are a total of 2,500 vacant certified and classified staff positions statewide. They're proposing to earmark at least $250 million for teacher raises.

Lombardo's plan has no such stipulation. Instead, he wants to use the interest generated by the Education Stabilization Account to pay for scholarships and grants for students who graduate from college and teach in a Nevada school for at least five years.

Lombardo is also pitching more money for Nevada's colleges and universities. Like the rest of the state government, the Nevada System of Higher Education, or NSHE, had to make drastic budget cuts during the height of the pandemic. However, most state agencies saw their budgets rectified the following year. NSHE did not. Lombardo's plan would restore funding to pre-pandemic levels with extra dollars to repair aging facilities and hire Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine faculty at UNLV.

Suspending the Gas Tax

Residents in the Silver State also continue to pay more at the pump than most other states. With gas prices averaging more than $4 a gallon, Governor Lombardo called for the immediate suspension of the gas tax for one year. The current gas tax is 23 cents per gallon and primarily funds the state's highway fund.

Lombardo, again, made the pitch to lawmakers during his State of the State and Democratic leaders, again, seem interested in the proposal, but it's going to come down to the details.

"I think we can all agree that we need to cut costs for Nevadans,” Yeager says. “I'm glad to see that is part of a policy proposal. I think the number one thing for us is going to be ensuring that this does not create an opportunity for oil companies, who are profiting billions of dollars, to come into the state of Nevada and pad their profits."

You Can't Agree on Everything

Of course, not everyone in Carson City is singing “Kumbaya.” Despite the desire of both Republicans and Democrats to bolster Nevada's schools, there’s more than a handful of bills that could spark fierce partisan divides.

First and foremost, Senate Democrats seem to be gearing up for a debate over reproductive rights. While the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision last June ended the guaranteed right to an abortion countrywide, abortions remain accessible in Nevada due to a voter-approved statute. Despite those protections, Democrats have pledged to enact protections for those seeking an abortion or other reproductive care.

Senate Bill 131, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro of Las Vegas, would prohibit the state from extraditing anyone charged in another state for providing or assisting with an abortion performed in Nevada. It also looks to ban state health care licensing boards from taking disciplinary actions against anyone for providing legal reproductive health care services in Nevada.

"Across the country, states are enacting draconian abortion bans, stripping people of reproductive healthcare, and threatening to prosecute providers for healthcare performed beyond their borders," Cannizzaro says. "As a result, we must strengthen our legal protections for healthcare providers and the patients who are now forced to come to Nevada to seek care."

The bill's early introduction is no surprise. It was among Democrats’ top promises in the 2022 election cycle, and it likely helped them secure some of the state's tightest races. The bill should sail through the Democrats’ near-supermajority in the legislature. However, Governor Lombardo refers to himself as a "pro-life Catholic," and while he's vowed to fight against a national abortion ban, it's unclear whether he'd sign the bill into law.

Medicaid for Undocumented Residents

Besides education, access to healthcare seems top of mind for Democrats. According to a 2019 report from the Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan, Nevada-based think tank, roughly 210,000 undocumented residents live in the Silver State. About 95,000 of them don't have insurance. That's something the Nevada Latino Legislative Caucus would like to have fixed.

"We know that it's an issue that many of our families have been asking for. We know that people who suffered most from COVID-19 (did so) because of socioeconomic factors, like access to health insurance," says Fabian Doñate, a democratic senator from Las Vegas who chairs the Nevada Latino Legislative Caucus. "Regardless of who you are or where you came from, you deserve to be taken care of as long as you're in this state."

Governor Lombardo may see things differently. He has yet to provide details on his healthcare agenda, but he did use a portion of his State of the State to lambast Democratic efforts to expand the state's role in providing healthcare. Specifically, he called for the repeal of the so-called "public option," which Democrats passed in the 2021 session. And while Nevada was the first state with a republican governor to expand Medicaid under the Obama-era's Affordable Care Act, Lombardo does not seem as keen to add another 100,000 names to the state's Medicaid roles.

To Save or Not to Save

Like most families, the state government has an emergency savings account known as the Rainy-Day Fund, which helps state officials fund operations if the economy goes south and tax revenues fall below expenditures. During the pandemic, it was instrumental in staving off deeper cuts across state government. It has since rebounded, topping $904 million — the fund's statutory limit — as of this week.

Governor Lombardo, though, wants more. He's proposed moving that cap from 20 percent of Nevada's general fund budget to 30 percent — a 50-percent increase in savings. Democrats seem less than thrilled by the proposal, and since they control the budget process, it's unlikely the governor will get a win here.

"There's not a philosophical objection," Yeager says. "Of course, we have to save for a rainy day. We just had the rainiest day we've ever had in the history of the state. We've got to do that, but it's a question of how much and what else could we do with that money that could help people here and now, actually on the ground with things that are going on."

Paul serves as KNPR's producer and reporter in Northern Nevada. Based in Reno, Paul specializes in politics, covering the state legislature as well as national issues' effect in Nevada.