In May 2025, Nevada’s Economic Forum delivered bad news. The panel of five private-sector economists projected the state would bring in about $12.2 billion over the next two budget years — roughly $191 million less than the $12.4 billion projected in December. It was the first time projected revenue had decreased mid-session since 2009. Lawmakers had about a month to find the cuts.

The state’s tourism-dependent economy was showing strain. By the end of 2025, Las Vegas visitor volume fell 7.5%, the lowest count since 2021. Airport traffic dropped nearly 6%. Hotel occupancy declined and average daily room rates fell 5% from the prior year. 

Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro told reporters the priority for the rest of the session would be keeping existing programs and services in place.

That’s the right instinct. But it raises an uncomfortable question: how do we know what’s actually helping?

The Christmas Tree Problem

Two years earlier, during the 2023 session, Nevada’s Legislature passed what are known as “Christmas tree bills.” This typically refers to last-minute legislation that hangs government spending appropriations like ornaments on a tree. Senate Bill 341 and Assembly Bill 525 directed more than $110 million in taxpayer funds to over 70 nonprofits and government organizations.

The largest single allocation was $25 million to the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas. Grant sizes ranged from $5,000 to $15 million. The most common stated purpose for each grant was to support each recipient’s “programs.” That was it. No further detail was given and apparently legislators decided no further detail was needed. The intention to help those who are “clearly” helping was enough to dish out millions.

At least 13 legislators had connections to organizations that received more than $33 million from these bills. One assemblywoman was hired as executive director of a recipient organization the month after the session ended. The organization had never received state funds before.

None of this was technically illegal. And that’s part of the problem.

The Legislature is exempt from Nevada’s open meeting law and public records law (see NRS 241.016) . The public can’t easily see how these bills are crafted or why certain organizations are selected. The vetting process, to the extent one exists, happens behind closed doors.

Promises Without Consequences

Here’s the economic logic underneath all of this.

When you buy a cup of coffee, you’re spending your own money on something you value. If the coffee is bad, you stop going. The shop adjusts or closes. That feedback, your choice to keep spending or go somewhere else, is what keeps resources flowing toward their best use. The person serving you the coffee has skin in the game. If they get it wrong, they feel it.

Government spending doesn’t work like that. The people deciding where the money goes aren’t the people who earned it. There are no prices signaling whether one program creates more value than another. There’s no profit-and-loss mechanism forcing a course correction when something isn’t working. A program that fails to deliver doesn’t go out of business. Often times, it actually gets a bigger budget next year.

This isn’t because government officials are bad people. It’s because the system is built on promises or “assurances” rather than accountability.

There’s an important difference between the two. Accountability means the people making decisions face real consequences when those decisions don’t work out. A business that wastes its capital loses customers, loses money, and eventually closes. The feedback is automatic.

Assurance is a promise that things will work out — most often without consequences when they don’t. When legislators tell taxpayers that $110 million in grants will support “programs,” that’s assurance. It sounds like a guarantee. But nobody loses their job if the money is wasted. Nobody faces financial consequences if the programs don’t deliver. The assurance is backed by nothing but the promise itself.

When revenue is plentiful, the difference between assurance and accountability is easy to ignore. Money flows, programs launch, ribbons get cut. Nobody asks hard questions when the account balance is growing. Assurance feels like enough.

But when revenue falls short by $191 million, suddenly everyone wants to know what’s “really helping Nevada families.” And assurance can’t answer that question. It was never designed to. Only accountability — systems where results are tracked, measured, and tied to consequences — can.

Turning Assurance Into Accountability

The government sector will never operate exactly like a market. But it can move closer to accountability and further from empty assurance. The goal is to close the gap between promises and consequences.

A few things worth considering:

• Subject the Legislature to the same open meeting and public records laws that every other level of Nevada government follows. Assurance thrives behind closed doors. Accountability requires sunlight. Twenty-six transparency-related bills were introduced during the 2025 session. The vast majority failed.
• Require meaningful conflict-of-interest disclosures and recusal rules when legislators have ties to funding recipients. When the people directing taxpayer money have personal connections to the recipients, assurance isn’t good enough. The current system relies on self-disclosure with minimal enforcement. In fact, the Legislative Counsel Bureau’s legal division determined that appropriation bills funding dozens of organizations “impact most citizens in the state and don’t meet the standard for a disqualifying conflict of interest.”
• Build independent post-expenditure audits into every major appropriation. When $110 million goes out the door with the stated purpose of supporting “programs,” someone should be checking whether those programs produced results. 
• Attach sunset provisions to discretionary spending so that programs expire unless they demonstrate continued value. As we’ve argued before, the question should be “why should we keep funding this?” not “why should we stop?” Sunset provisions flip the default from assurance to accountability. 

None of these ideas are radical. They’re the basic plumbing that moves government from assurance toward accountability. And Nevada is overdue for an upgrade.

The Bigger Picture

Nevada’s $191 million shortfall isn’t the real story. Budget cycles go up and down. Revenue projections miss. Lawmakers make cuts. That’s normal, especially for Nevada.

The real story is what happens in the years when money is flowing. When there’s a surplus, the temptation is to spend it. The 2023 Christmas tree bills are a case study: what was seen as record surpluses created the conditions for record discretionary spending with minimal oversight. Nobody demanded accountability because nobody felt the cost.

Then when revenue tightens, lawmakers scramble to figure out what to cut. They just don’t have the information they need to cut wisely. That’s the price of running a system on assurance. When it finally matters, you don’t have the answers.

This is the cycle that accountability can break. Not by preventing spending, but by ensuring that when money goes out, there’s a clear record of where it went, who decided, why they decided, and whether it worked. Accountability creates consequences. Consequences create information. Information creates better decisions.

Nevadans deserve better than promises. They deserve proof. Especially now.

Be the First to Know When the Piggy Booklet Drops

Want to be the first to know when the Piggy Booklet drops? Sign up below and we’ll notify you the moment it’s released, so you can see exactly where else Nevada taxpayer dollars are being wasted, misspent, or handed out with little to no accountability. From no bid contracts to duplicate programs to spending nobody can quite explain, the Piggy Booklet pulls back the curtain the Legislature keeps closed. If you care about knowing where your money actually goes, this is the report you don’t want to miss.