Anahit Baghshetsyan appeared on the Kevin Wall Radio show to explain how the new federal scholarship tax credit will work when it begins in 2027.
Listen here
Anahit Baghshetsyan appeared on the Kevin Wall Radio show to explain how the new federal scholarship tax credit will work when it begins in 2027.
Listen here
Nevada Policy’s letter to the Reno Gazette Journal agrees lawmakers are right to end data centers’ property tax abatements, but says banning the industry outright goes too far and would kill growth in a state that has always won by getting there first. It argues state pressure has already pushed developers toward more efficient designs and surfaced Nevada’s overdue need for energy independence, so lawmakers should legislate with a cool head rather than shut the door.
Read the letter here: https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/letters/letter-dont-ban-data-centers-3882873/
Before retiring, Rep. Mark Amodei is pushing H.R. 2317, but Nevada Policy’s McKenli Williams argues in a new Reno Gazette Journal op-ed that its land deals actually expand federal control more than they shrink it. Read the full piece here.
Nevada Policy’s McKenli Williams, raised on a northern Nevada ranch, argues that decades of treating feral horses as cultural icons rather than a land management issue has left BLM rangeland overrun, with herds at more than three times sustainable capacity and management costs soaring past $142 million a year while the land keeps degrading.
Read the full piece: https://mvprogress.com/2026/09/01/nevadas-feral-horse-problem-is-a-policy-failure-and-blm-land-is-proof/
Clark County’s new short term rental ordinance still tries to squeeze homeowners out of the market, this time by forcing platforms like Airbnb to police payments instead of listings, even after losing two federal court rulings over the old rules. Nevada Policy’s Anahit Baghshetsyan argues the county isn’t protecting consumers, it’s protecting resort revenue, and Nevadans deserve the freedom to rent out their own property.
Southern Nevada’s growth could hit a wall by 2030. That’s the warning from Cameron Belt, Policy Fellow with Nevada Policy, who joined host Paul Enos to break down the region’s shrinking supply of developable land. With so much of Nevada under federal ownership, Belt says the area could run out of large scale development land within the next few years, a limit that threatens future job growth, housing, and new employment centers.
The Las Vegas Review Journal cited Nevada Policy’s research in its article about Governor Lombardo’s vetoes this legislative session.
The Review-Journal’s editorial quotes Research Analyst Anahit Baghshetsyan.
Article written based on Nevada Policy’s 200 Boards report
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This morning the US Supreme Court released a 5-4 ruling, affirming that non-union workers cannot be forced to pay fees to public-sector unions.
“The ruling affirms a right that, thankfully, Nevada teachers already have: The right to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to financially support their union,” explained Nevada Policy Research Institute Communications Director Michael Schaus.
The ruling comes the week before Nevada’s annual “Opt-Out” period of July 1st through 15th, when Nevada Teachers can opt out of paying dues to their respective unions.
The landmark case of Janus vs AFSCME represents one of the most crucial labor cases to come before the Supreme Court in years, if not decades. The majority decided unions are unable to force public workers who have opted out of membership to pay so-called “agency fees” in lieu of membership dues.
“We applaud the decision,” says Schaus. “No worker should ever be forced to financially support an organization with which they don’t agree, and in affirming the position of Mark Janus, the Supreme Court has extended all public-sector workers the same basic right Nevadans have enjoyed for years.”
The ruling makes it possible for public-sector workers in non-right-to-work states to decide for themselves whether they wish to pay dues or fees to a collective bargaining agent or union — a right that, until this morning, did not exist for government workers in roughly half of the United States.
According to Schaus, the decision should be welcome news for public-sector workers, regardless of whether they belong to their local union.
“For too long, union leadership has taken their members for granted — treating them as little more than a bunch of walking membership dues. But when members are given the right to opt-out, suddenly workers are free to vote with their wallets on how well union leaders are representing their interests,” explained Schaus.
“In some cases, we’ve seen this in dramatic fashion. In Clark County, for example, over 40 percent of teachers have already exercised this right over the years — deciding to keep their hard-earned money rather than hand it over to an organization that continually fails to provide its members with substantial value.
“Thankfully, this right is now available to every public-sector worker in the United States.”
Nevada teachers who are interested in opting-out of paying union dues can visit NVTeacherChoice.com for more information on how to opt-out of membership in the first two weeks of July.
“We congratulate Mark Janus on his victory at the Supreme Court, and we’re pleased that the Supreme Court has affirmed the right that a growing number of Nevada teachers are already exercising,” said Schaus.
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The average wage for Clark County local government workers is richer than what their peers in 99 percent of counties nationwide receive, according to an NPRI analysis of the most current wage data available from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the 2017 third quarter, local government workers in Clark County received an average weekly wage of $1,155 — which ranked 55th out of the 2,867 counties surveyed nationwide, and was about 22 percent higher than the $943 received by local government workers nationally.
When the average wages are adjusted to reflect the different price levels faced by the average consumer in each state, as calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Regional Price Parities 2015 report, Clark County jumps to number 25 on the list — placing its employees firmly within the top 1 percent of counties with the highest paid local government workers nationwide.
Cost borne by taxpayers who, on average, earn much less themselves
“The findings are significant, given that much of the cost for this excess is borne by Nevada residents who, on average, earn much less themselves,” explained Nevada Policy Research Institute Director of Transparency Research Robert Fellner.
“Clark County local government workers are among some of the best paid in the nation, but this excess is being funded by a private sector that earns significantly less than the national average,” explained Fellner.
While the $1,155 average weekly wage received by Clark County local government workers was 22 percent above the national average, the $866 earned by private-sector workers was 15 percent less than the national average of $1,013.
But Clark County government workers don’t just fare well in comparisons of wages, they also receive vastly richer non-wage benefits than the average private-sector worker.
The NPRI analysis found that Clark County government workers receive nearly twice as many paid holiday and sick days, significantly greater job security and a retirement plan that costs nearly 6 times more than what the average private-sector worker receives.
Despite receiving wages that already place them in the top 1 percent of counties nationwide, the SEIU of Nevada recently rejected Clark County’s offer of a 2 percent pay increase, and is instead demanding a 3.25 percent raise instead.
The move shows why collective bargaining in the public sector was historically opposed by so many, including some of the labor movement’s greatest champions like former President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“As the SEIU of Nevada has made clear, unions in the public sector are not about eliminating an imbalance that results in below-market wages. Instead, the incentives are such that both government unions and campaigning lawmakers profit from inflated public pay and the increased burden that imposes on taxpayers.
“That is precisely why extending collective bargaining to the public sector was opposed by so many across the ideological spectrum, for so long. ”
In response to the news that CCSD Board President Deanna Wright’s husband Jason Wright, a district educator, was recently accused of assaulting a 5th grade student and subsequently transferred to a new school, the Nevada Policy Research Institute once again highlighted the importance of transparency in government-union contract negotiations.
“This situation reeks of favoritism and secrecy and should be investigated by an independent third-party to ascertain the underlying facts,” says NPRI policy analyst Daniel Honchariw. “However, it also underscores the urgent need for sunlight on government-union contract negotiations.”
Honchariw says a bad situation was made worse “because of a dangerous contractual provision agreed to by the district and its teacher union behind closed doors.”
Per Article 12, Section 10 of the district’s collective bargaining agreement with the Clark County Education Association, all allegations of misconduct, no matter how well documented, are automatically wiped from employees’ personnel files — with the sole exception of allegations that resulted in a criminal conviction. The accused can then be transferred to a different district school whose staff, administrators, students and parents are wholly unaware of the past accusations, increasing the potential for more students to be victimized.
“This provision — which explicitly serves the narrow interest of the union and its dues-paying members, at the expense of student safety — is a reflection of Nevada’s fundamentally broken collective bargaining laws for local government unions,” says Honchariw.
Due to the outsized political influence of government-sector unions, Nevada lawmakers agreed decades ago to exempt union negotiations from the purview of Nevada’s Open Meetings Law. This exemption means that all aspects of the collective bargaining process occur beyond public view.
“Such secrecy leaves unions free to demand, and oftentimes receive, contract provisions that are unable to withstand public scrutiny,” Honchariw explains.
Just last year the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s “Broken Trust” series documented the real-world harm of such provisions. For example, before former CCSD teacher Jeremiah Mazo eventually pleaded guilty to three felony counts of attempted lewdness with a child in August 2015, his file had been completely wiped of other allegations dating back to 2008.
Had those allegations been reported on his confidential personnel file when he was transferred to a different school after the 2008 incident, perhaps administrators could have taken necessary steps to prevent the later abuses to which Mazo eventually pleaded guilty.
“This so-called ‘pass the trash’ policy is unacceptable and must be immediately ended for the safety of all CCSD students,” says Honchariw. “To do this, the first step is bringing transparency to union negotiations.
“There is no justification for secrecy in the collective bargaining process — especially when such a culture of secrecy puts the safety of Nevada’s 490,000 students at risk.
“Moreover, members of government unions are paid with taxpayer dollars, and as such, the public has every right to witness these negotiations in real time, in public view.
“The legislative fix is simple: Strike NRS 288.220 from Nevada law. Keeping such an unacceptable law on the books is merely a testament to the corrosive, undue influence government unions have over the legislative process.”
A staggering 10,553 Clark County School District teachers were “chronically absent” during the 2015-2016 school year, according to just-released data from the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
Absent for at least 11 school days throughout the year, these 10,553 chronically absent teachers accounted for 59 percent of CCSD’s total full-time teaching staff in 2016 — a rate that was more than triple the 19 percent of chronically absent teachers found at the median school district nationwide.
Because academic research has found a significant reduction in student learning when teachers are absent for more than 10 days of the school year, there has been an increased focus among policymakers and academics to better understand, and hopefully fix, this problem.
In 2017, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found that teachers in public schools were almost three times as likely to be chronically absent as teachers in charter schools nationwide.
That analysis found that things were even worse in Nevada, with public school teachers being more than seven times as likely to be chronically absent than teachers in charter schools — the highest disparity of any state in the nation.
That disparity demonstrates the important role school choice programs can play in addressing educational issues that Nevada’s public schools have been unable — or unwilling — to tackle in the past.
“Students deserve — and need — their teacher to be in the classroom. It is simply unacceptable that nearly 60 percent of CCSD teachers are absent for 11 or more days of regular, classroom instruction,” explained Nevada Policy Research Institute Communications Director Michael Schaus.
“The dramatic difference between the levels of chronic teacher absenteeism at Nevada’s charter schools and public schools reaffirms the importance of introducing choice and competition into the public school monopoly.
“Instead of waiting for CCSD to finally fix this problem — keeping thousands of children captive to a failed system in the meantime — the Legislature should embrace the proven solution of school choice, which already enjoys widespread, bipartisan support among Nevada voters.
“Even the limited options already offered to parents — like Nevada’s charter schools and the state’s Opportunity Tax Scholarships — have shown tremendous promise. The Legislature needs to heed the call of frustrated Nevadans and expand on these successes by promoting charter schools, funding ESAs and expanding the state’s Tax Scholarship program.
“Doing so would finally put quality educational options within the reach of every Nevada family.”
To learn more about how choice and competition can help empower all Nevadans with access to a quality education, please visit NPRI.ORG.
While Clark County reports a maximum annual salary of $162,000 for the position of chief deputy district attorney, former chief deputy DA Frank Ponticello actually received $415,662 in total pay last year, boosted in large part by cashing in over $217,000 worth of unused sick and vacation days.
When the employer-cost of health and retirement benefits are accounted for, Ponticello received a total compensation package worth $475,887.
After Ponticello, the next 4 highest compensated Clark County employees were:
Total county employee compensation was $789 million, a roughly 3 percent increase from 2016.
The County’s top overtime (OT) earner was fire engineer William Hill, who received $75,448 in OT in addition to a base salary of $101,505.
Staggering paid leave time boosts Nevada government workers’ earnings across the state
The addition of 2017 Clark County data has solidified Carson City Fire Captain Matthew Donnelly’s position as the recipient of more OT payments ($110,162) than any firefighter in the state for the 2nd year in a row, as NPRI previously reported.
Such consistently high overtime is made possible, in part, due to the enormous amount of paid leave time provided to Carson City Fire employees, in combination with a policy whereby paid leave is treated as hours worked for the purpose of calculating overtime pay.
Specifically, Donnelly averaged 895 hours’ worth of paid leave for each of the past three years. To read more about soaring overtime pay at the Carson City Fire Department, please click here.
Similar abuses were found at the Nevada Department of Corrections, where one state correctional officer more than tripled his $57,000 salary to over $200,000 with OT, benefits.
The excessive overtime payments are made possible because officers can collect overtime even when they work less than a 40 hour work week by using paid leave. According to the department’s own audit, $2.8 million in overtime was paid to officers who did not even work a full 40-hour week.
As Nevada Policy Research Institute Transparency Director Robert Fellner pointed out when NPRI first reported on the issue, the practice should have been addressed long before lawmakers agreed to increase spending in the department.
“Before the Governor championed raising wages and hiring more correctional officers — further burdening taxpayers with higher government spending — the very least he should have done was address the fundamentally abusive and wasteful practice of paying overtime to those who aren’t even working a full shift,” said Fellner.
To explore the 2017 pay data for nearly 130,000 Nevada state and local government workers, please visit TransparentNevada.com.
Today, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that government officials cannot subvert the state's public records law by conducting official business on private devices or through personal email accounts.
The Nevada Policy Research Institute applauds the Court's decision — a decision that is essential to ensuring Nevadans receive the kind of transparent and open government promised to them under state law.
Nevada Policy Research Institute Transparency Director Robert Fellner issued the following statement:
Today's ruling by the state Supreme Court reaffirms Nevadans’ right to a government that is both transparent and accountable — a promise which has been enshrined in state law for over 100 years.
In finding that public officials cannot hide their activities by simply conducting government business on personal devices, the Court reinforces the mandate within Nevada's Public Records Law that it "be construed liberally to carry out [the] important purpose" of a transparent and open government.
The ruling — drawing on the plain language of the law and the intent behind it — established jurisprudence which will act as a bulwark against those who would seek to undermine Nevada's Public Records Law by choosing to conduct public business on private devices.
A fully transparent and accountable government has long been a top priority of NPRI, which sees them as essential to a vibrant and prosperous society. Today’s Court ruling helps to ensure those principles remain alive and well in Nevada.
For more information, please visit NPRI.ORG or contract NPRI transparency director Robert Fellner at 702.222.0642 or via email at RF@NPRI.ORG.
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