Director of Research Geoffrey Lawrence and Policy Analyst Anahit Baghshetsyan op-ed in the Reno Gazette Journal about short term rental regulations.
Director of Research Geoffrey Lawrence and Policy Analyst Anahit Baghshetsyan op-ed in the Reno Gazette Journal about short term rental regulations.
Nevada Policy’s Anahit Baghshetsyan’s informative commentary in the Las Vegas Review-Journal
The Las Vegas Review-Journal published an op-ed letter by Nevada Policy’s Policy Analyst, Anahit Baghshetsyan, about the future of film tax credits in Nevada.
Policy Analyst Anahit Baghshetsyan’s op-ed for the Las Vegas Review Journal about the New York City Mayor’s race and what it could mean for Nevada.
Read the op-ed here.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote an article based on Policy Fellow Cameron Belt’s piece about a need for changing regulations in Nevada. Read the article here.
The Reno Gazette interviewed Policy Analyst Anahit Baghshetsyan about the changes to Nevada’s home insurance law. Read the full story here.
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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Email: pr@nevadapolicy.org
For immediate release
Contact Chantal Lovell, 702-222-0642
CARSON CITY – Tonight, Gov. Brian Sandoval released a revised version of his gross-receipts tax proposal that also includes an increase in the Modified Business Tax and Business License Fee. In response to the news, NPRI Executive Vice President Victor Joecks released the following comments:
Nevada taxpayers have clearly let policymakers know that they don’t support higher taxes, especially a gross-receipts tax. With the margin tax going down in flames by a 4-to-1 ratio, and Sandoval’s Gross Receipts Business License Tax failing to even receive a vote in the Assembly, that message has been clearly sent.
Unfortunately, Gov. Brian Sandoval is continuing to try and ram through a scaled-down version of a gross-receipts tax.
Calling it a “Commerce Fee” can’t disguise the problems inherent in gross-receipts taxation, such as raising taxes on businesses that are losing money and tax pyramiding.
Joecks noted that Sandoval’s plan would also raise the job-killing modified business tax and increase the costs of every small business owner.
Sandoval’s new plan combines the worst elements of all the existing plans and would pave the way for a never-ending push to expand the structurally flawed gross-receipts tax.
While this plan would ensure full employment for lobbyists, it would lower employment for everyday Nevadans.
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For immediate release
Contact Chantal Lovell, 702-222-0642
LAS VEGAS — Responding to the Nevada Senate’s passage today of Senate Bill 252 to create a Gross-Receipts Business License Tax, the Nevada Policy Research Institute’s Executive Vice President Victor Joecks issued the following comments:
The voters of Nevada made clear in November that they do not want to impose a gross-receipts business tax, yet today the Senate passed a similar tax. Unlike the 17 Senators who voted in favor of SB252, Nevada voters recognized that raising taxes on businesses that are struggling or even losing money will only hurt families and parents throughout Nevada.
Nevada voters should thank Senators Gustavson, Goicoechea, Hammond and Settelmeyer for respecting the will of voters and rejecting this destructive tax.
SB252 would create a tax that charges businesses on their gross receipts, meaning even businesses running a deficit would be required to pay. This will force struggling businesses to close their doors and lay off workers. As the Tax Foundation has said, ‘There is no sensible case for gross-receipts taxation.’
Joecks urged Nevada Assembly members to reject SB252 and noted that Texas has experienced numerous problems with its own tax on gross receipts, the margin tax.
Governor Sandoval has stated he’s modeled his tax after Texas’ franchise tax, but that tax is failing in Texas. After Texas implemented a margin tax in 2007, roughly 20 percent of small businesses reported they would be forced to lay off employees, while one-third of businesses reported they’d leave jobs unfilled. This gross-receipts tax has been so bad that lawmakers in Texas are currently looking to eliminate it.
Supporters of the Governor’s tax point to his popularity as reason to support this tax. But a poll released by NPRI on Monday shows that nearly 90 percent of Nevadans are unaware that Governor Sandoval has proposed the largest tax increase in the state’s history. In his last campaign Sandoval even touted his support for ‘no new taxes.’
Education does need reform, but that won’t come from throwing more money into the system through SB252. Lawmakers should implement innovative and proven solutions to Nevada’s problems, like universal Education Savings Accounts and paying top teachers in failing schools premium wages.
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For immediate release
Contact Chantal Lovell, 702-222-0642
LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Policy Research Institute is applauding Gov. Brian Sandoval for signing into law Assembly Bill 165, legislation creating the state’s first Opportunity Scholarships, a school choice measure for which the Institute has long advocated.
In response to the passage of AB165, NPRI Deputy Communications Director Chantal Lovell issued the following comments:
Today, NPRI celebrates with families across the state of Nevada over the creation of the Nevada Educational Choice Scholarship Program. Opportunity Scholarships open the door for more families to have greater freedom in where their children will be educated, ensuring that more of Nevada’s kids have a chance to succeed.
The state’s traditional, one-size-fits-all education system has failed Nevada students for decades, so it’s high time we allow children to take advantage of individualized education that can help them meet their full potential. This is especially true for children from Nevada’s more economically deprived families, who are the primary beneficiaries of AB165.
School choice has been proven to work; out of 12 empirical studies that have examined its effectiveness, 11 found that school choice improves student outcomes, while one found no impact. Studies overwhelmingly show that school choice also improves public schools.
By allowing businesses to donate to scholarship funds in return for tax credits, Nevada’s companies can help to create the educated workforce they need to make this state better for generations to come.
Though Opportunity Scholarships are a great step for Nevada, the work is not over. Nevada lawmakers must work to expand school choice in Nevada by allowing more charter schools to open in the state and creating an Education Savings Account Program so that all children, regardless of their own abilities or their family’s economic status, may access the educational program that best suits their unique needs.
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LAS VEGAS — Thousands of working Nevadans will be left jobless and energy customers will see their bills skyrocket as Nevada implements a two-year-old law requiring NV Energy to shut down its coal-fired power plants by 2020 and shift to renewable sources.
That’s according to a new analysis commissioned by the Nevada Policy Research Institute and conducted by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University. The analysis, authored by Paul Bachman and Michael Head, examines the economic effects of Senate Bill 123 on Nevada’s economy.
His findings show that the bill, passed by the 2013 Legislature, will cause 2,630 people to lose their jobs by 2020 as companies adjust their spending to account for higher energy bills. Energy bills for customers will rise, while disposable income and investment in the state fall.
In response to the study, NPRI’s Deputy Communications Director Chantal Lovell issued this statement:
Supporters of mandates like SB123 claim that abandoning the use of coal and moving to renewable sources will stimulate the economy through the creation of “green” jobs. But as studies by Beacon Hill and others make clear, jobs are not being created on net, but lost.
These job losses and rate hikes are coming because the State of Nevada has told its energy utility that it may no longer use energy sources that have served consumers for decades and must instead replace them with more socially acceptable technologies.
Rather than expanding regulations that hurt working people and the economy, Nevada and other states should look to Texas, which has aggressively sought to deregulate electricity, resulting in the nation’s least expensive electricity.
To speak with the study’s authors, contact Chantal Lovell, whose information listed above.
Read the full analysis: http://www.npri.org/docLib/20150409_EconomiceffectsofSB123.pdf
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LAS VEGAS — A study being distributed by SEIU of Nevada — claiming that the state’s local-government employees receive less compensation than comparable private-sector workers — is fatally flawed, say authors of a major national state-by-state ranking of public employee pay.
The SEIU-backed white paper is written by Rutgers Associate Prof. Jeffrey Keefe and argues that Nevada’s local-government employees receive lower combined salaries and fringe benefits than do comparable private-sector workers. But the Keefe study, say Andrew G. Biggs and Jason Richwine — themselves authors of a comprehensive look at public-employee compensation — “is fatally flawed.” Biggs is also the author of the Nevada Policy Research Institute’s 2001 study, “Reforming Nevada's Public Employees Pension Plan.”
Biggs and Richwine say the important flaws in the study include:
Wage results are not replicable. Keefe claims that Nevada local government employees receive significantly lower wages than similar private sector workers. But we are unable to replicate Keefe’s figures. Data from the Current Population Survey show that, after controlling for education, experience and other factors that affect pay, Nevada local government employees receive comparable salaries to private sector employees. Analysis using the American Community Survey shows a public employee wage premium.
Benefits data are not specific to Nevada. Even though he is purportedly studying Nevada, Keefe’s benefits data are actually averages for Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Using regional averages is acceptable for minor benefit categories or for the private sector, where there is less cross-state variation. But large public-sector benefits such as pensions and health insurance can differ dramatically among states. For these benefits, it is necessary to use Nevada-specific data. Keefe’s regional average benefit numbers are simply not relevant to Nevada.
And even Keefe’s regional comparison is wrong. It is well-known among researchers that the Employer Cost for Employee Compensation (ECEC) data set used by Keefe has two major drawbacks:
Pension compensation is undervalued. The ECEC values pension compensation based on the government’s contribution to the fund. But what states contribute in a given year has literally nothing to do with what pension benefits will be owed. The proper valuation of pension benefits comes from the risk-adjusted “normal cost” of the pension, meaning the present value of benefits accrued by workers each year, less any employee contributions.[1]
Retiree health benefits are omitted. Most Nevada local employees become eligible for some form of retiree health coverage, but the ECEC data — and, hence, Keefe’s study — omit retiree health costs entirely. Governments are required to report the value of retiree health benefits accruing to current employees. For example, the City of Reno’s actuarial valuation shows that future retiree health benefits accruing to city employees in 2013 were worth an additional 11.5% of wages.[2] By contrast, retiree health benefits in the private sector typically amount to less than 1% of wages.[3]
For all of the above reasons, Biggs and Richwine state, the Keefe study “is not a useful analysis of local government compensation in Nevada.”
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Nevada Policy Research Institute ∙ 7130 Placid St., Las Vegas, NV 89119
Phone: 702-222-0642 ∙ Fax: 702-227-0927 ∙ Web site: http://npri.org
[1] Biggs and Richwine, “Overpaid or underpaid? A State-by-State Ranking of Public-Employee Compensation,” American Enterprise Institute, April 2014.” Also see Congressional Budget Office, “Comparing the Compensation of Federal and Private-Sector Employees.” January 2012.
[2] City of Reno, Actuarial Valuation of Other Post-Employment Benefit Programs as of July 1, 2013.
[3] Biggs and Richwine, “Overpaid or underpaid?” pp. 36-38
For immediate release
Contact Chantal Lovell, 702-222-0642
LAS VEGAS — The push to build “green” schools is growing in Nevada, but a new study raises questions about the payoff of meeting these costly construction standards.
The analysis — written by Todd Myers, a Wall Street Journal expert panelist and the environmental director at the Washington Policy Center — compares the construction and energy costs of schools in Clark and Washoe counties and finds that facilities built to “green” standards produce only nominal electricity savings and, in some cases, use more energy than schools not built to these costly standards.
When compared to non-green schools, Depoali Middle School — Washoe County’s one middle school built to green standards — performed well, but was not the most energy efficient. Another school, Cold Springs Middle School, took the spot for most energy efficient middle school in the district despite not having been built to green standards; Shaw Middle School, also a non-green school, tied Depoali for the second-most efficient middle school in the district.
Myers estimates it will take 40-100 years worth of energy savings to pay for the added construction costs of the green Depoali.
The four green elementary schools in the Clark County School District are more efficient than non-green schools built around the same time, but it could be decades before the district sees a payoff for its investment as well.
NPRI Deputy Communications Director Chantal Lovell issued the following comments about the study:
With Gov. Brian Sandoval and the Legislature just authorizing ten additional years of bonding without voter approval, it’s important that school district officials not waste taxpayer dollars on ‘green’ schools that fail to produce return on investment.
To spend millions on construction elements that may satisfy the demands of environmental activists but may never pay for themselves in energy savings would be a waste and undercut the school district’s stated priority of building new schools.
Schools built to green/LEED standards can cost anywhere from 1 to 3 percent more to construct, but take decades before the added construction elements pay for themselves. Before any school is built to ‘green’ standards, officials should ensure the added expense actually saves money, instead of limiting the number of schools that can be built.
The study does not consider the additional maintenance costs that energy-saving elements typically incur over the years, meaning the financial benefit of green buildings is even less.
To speak with the study’s author, please contact Chantal Lovell, whose information is listed above.
The full analysis can be read here: http://www.npri.org/docLib/20150326_GreenSchools.pdf
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