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.
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 Reno Gazette Journal featured an op-ed by Policy Analyst Anahit Baghshetsyan about film tax credits in Nevada. Read the full article here.
Nevada Policy’s Policy Analyst, Anahit Baghshetsyan, was interviewed by NPR affiliate KUNR about the legislature’s options for the difficult insurance situation in the Silver State. Read the article here.
Nevada Policy President, John Tsarpalas was interviewed on the American Potential Podcast about the grassroots victory over RCV ballot question in the 2024 election. Watch the interview 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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LAS VEGAS — Today's ruling by the Nevada Supreme Court — upholding the public's right to know in the face of resistance by the Nevada Public Employees Retirement System — is a welcome victory for public accountability, said Steven Miller, NPRI's vice president for policy.
Nevertheless, he added, it appears unlikely that the PERS fight against transparency — and against full public understanding of Nevada's heavy public-employee pension liability problem — will end soon.
"That's because the Court also vacated a lower-court order telling PERS to create customized reports that compile information from individuals' files or other records," said Miller.
The Reno Gazette-Journal had brought the case, asking that NV PERS fulfill a public records request seeking the names of all individuals collecting state pensions, the names of their government employers, their salaries, their hire and retirement dates, and the amounts of their pension payments. PERS denied the request on grounds that a state district court rejected, and then appealed that court's decision to the state's highest court.
"Frequently, recalcitrant public agencies in Nevada still use die-in-the-last ditch tactics to obstruct public knowledge of how they're actually using taxpayer money," said Miller. "And, unfortunately, the PERS record suggests that the agency may well move to that level of resistance."
Yet, he said, it remains “imperative that the public get a clear understanding of the types of pension benefits that are being paid out.
"What happens is that, as long-term pension liabilities continue to increase, Nevada’s state and local governments have to allocate more and more of their budget to retirement contributions.
"And those rising pension costs are starting to crowd out these governments’ ability to provide critical services such as fire or police protection," he said.
"In the past few years, we’ve seen cities from Vallejo to Detroit forced into bankruptcy — and its primarily because they were unable to keep up with rising pension payments for public employees.
"Here in Nevada, we're not immune to this danger — North Las Vegas is facing very similar challenges — and that’s why it’s important for the public to know exactly how pension money is being used."
A recent NPRI study noted that if PERS was subject to the kinds of audits faced by private businesses — Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP — its unfunded liability would amount to $40 billion. That's about $8,000 for every man, woman and child in the state. PERS instead uses a lower accounting standard that would be illegal for a privately managed pension plan. its unfunded liability would be $40 billion — or about $8,000 for every man, woman and child in the state.
Miller speculated that the Nevada Legislature could choose to weigh in on the matter and mandate that PERS make all of the information requested by the Gazette-Journal publicly available on its website.
"For too long, Nevada PERS has fought its legal obligation to allow the public to see exactly how much public employees are taking home each year in their taxpayer-funded retirement," said Miller. "The PERS system in Nevada allows a lot of abuse, and taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent."
He also said that, on behalf of TransparentNevada — which NPRI publishes as a public service — the Institute will be updating its own requests for PERS retirement-system data, in order to publish in on TransparentNevada.com as soon as possible.
Miller concluded by applauding the Reno Gazette-Journal for its dedicated fight on behalf of public accountability and transparency.
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LAKE TAHOE, Nev. — Well over half of homeowners in the Lake Tahoe Basin with experience of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency — 55 percent — express “much frustration” with the agency, while 72 percent say TRPA can be depended upon to not take their concerns very seriously.
In each case, TRPA’s unsatisfactory numbers are significantly higher than those of other local-government agencies in the Basin and higher still when compared to the attitudes of homeowners just outside the Basin.
Those are some of the many findings from two new surveys of attitudes toward local governments of homeowners living in the five Nevada and California counties surrounding Lake Tahoe, released today by NPRI’s Nevada Journal.
When homeowners who report limited or no experience with TRPA are included in the calculations, the numbers for TRPA are not quite so dire. In that case, only 47 percent express “much frustration” with TRPA and 70 percent say the agency does not take homeowner concerns very seriously.
“These results reveal the deep problems the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency still has with Lake Tahoe homeowners,” said NPRI Vice President for Policy Steven Miller. “While none of the government agencies in the region scored particularly well in the survey, TRPA received the lowest marks by far.”
A second poll surveyed the opinions of homeowners in the same counties, but outside the Lake Tahoe Basin. Outside-the-Basin homeowners answered parallel questions, with the term “your local Planning Agency” replacing “the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.”
Basin homeowners experienced with their city and county governments expressed “much frustration” regarding those entities 46 and 35 percent of the time, respectively. Outside the Basin, comparable homeowners reported such frustration only 28 and 29 percent of the time, respectively.
The surveys also probed respondents’ possible sense of futility in dealing with local-government agencies. Inside the Basin, 48 percent of all respondents said they found dealing with TRPA “very futile.” When the answers of those with minimal experience of the agency were excluded, TRPA’s “futility rating” went up to 57 percent.
Basin homeowners, by a 59 to 41 percent majority, agreed that “Basin residents end up with less liberty than Americans outside Tahoe Basin.”
However, homeowners living in the same counties, but outside the Basin, don’t see the problem. By a 55 to 45 margin, they see Basin homeowners as having just as much freedom as everyone else.
“TRPA’s real problem,” said Miller, “is that its basic mission has always been, and largely remains, to impose top-down, command-style controls on Basin property owners. That’s bound to make you unpopular in America, where in virtually every other community, planning authorities are more answerable to local governments and local people.
“TRPA, however, for most of its existence has answered primarily to far-away politicians, judges and bureaucrats. And those distant politicians, judges and bureaucrats frequently were striving to keep in step with the misanthropic wing of the environmentalist movement.
“Hopefully, under the new Regional Plan adopted in 2012, some important degree of local community control will return to the Tahoe Basin.”
The surveys, conducted for NPRI’s Nevada Journal by PMI International, have a margin of error, plus or minus, of 5 percent.
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LAS VEGAS — More than 465 teachers opted out of the Clark County Education Association teacher union between July 1 and 15, 2013, according to the Clark County School District.
That two-week period is the only part of the year, according to the union’s contract with CCSD, during which current union members can drop their CCEA membership. For the last two years, the short window has been the subject of a Nevada Policy Research Institute informational campaign directed at teachers.
Currently, only 10,648 of CCSD’s 17,908 teachers are members of CCEA. The 469 teachers who left the union this July joined more than 800 teachers who left the previous summer. Union teachers now constitute only 60 percent of the district’s teacher workforce.
Responding to this news, NPRI Communications Director Victor Joecks released the following comments:
This summer, hundreds of teachers voted with their feet and left the Clark County Education Association. Because teachers can only opt out of CCEA between July 1 and 15, NPRI has been informing teachers of this narrow window and how they can use it. Many teachers are otherwise unaware of this limited and inconvenient drop period.
By leaving the union, 469 teachers decided they would keep $773 more of their own money each year, instead of sending their money to an organization that recently paid a union boss over $625,000 annually. Other teachers are turned off by the union’s terrible customer service or prefer getting their liability insurance from groups — such as the Association of American Educators — that charge only a fraction of what the union does.
In 2007, CCSD records show that CCEA membership exceeded 13,000. Today it is under 10,700. CCEA represents less than 60 percent of teachers, which is down from 65 percent in mid-2012.
The limited and inconvenient drop period written into the union’s contract with CCSD has been a transparent attempt by union bosses to keep their power by restricting teachers’ ability to leave CCEA. That contract language shows that union officials see teachers more as dupes to manipulate than as professionals entitled to respect.
To avoid this problem, Nevada’s Legislature should eliminate the restrictive drop periods union officials insert into collective-bargaining contracts to keep teachers captive.
“While NPRI's information campaign reached thousands of teachers,” said Joecks, “there still were thousands we weren’t able to reach. We will continue our efforts to provide every teacher in Nevada with this information.
“Unlike union bosses, NPRI trusts teachers enough to think they should be allowed make their own decisions about union membership — and act on those decisions when they choose to.”
Read more:
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LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Policy Research Institute today took its fight to get Clark County School District public records to the Nevada Supreme Court, in filing a notice of appeal with the Eighth Judicial District Court.
NPRI sued CCSD after the district refused to release the email addresses it issues to teachers. Last month, in a widely criticized decision, District Court Judge Douglas Smith granted CCSD’s motion to dismiss.
In announcing the filing, Joseph Becker, the director of NPRI’s Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation, released the following comments:
Nevada’s Supreme Court has a history of overturning judicial district decisions that errantly attempt to limit Nevada’s Public Records Act. NPRI’s open-records case needs to be the next example of the Supreme Court defending the public-records law by reversing a misguided lower-court decision.
We are appealing to the Supreme Court to uphold both the clear language of the law and a recent Supreme Court ruling finding that the Nevada Public Records Act’s provisions should be “construed liberally.” Additionally, the redefining by the district judge of NPRI’s request for records as a “request for a communication device or method” is a dangerous precedent that must be overturned. If not, government officials will be able to deny legitimate requests for public records based on their interpretations of how those records will be used.
Becker noted that a diverse group of individuals and organizations across the political spectrum, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and the Nevada Press Association, strongly disagreed with the judge’s ruling.
Allen Lichtenstein, ACLU Nevada attorney, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that “[t]he Nevada Supreme Court has been quite clear that government records are public, with very limited exceptions.” Of the directory of email addresses NPRI is seeking, Lichtenstein added: “It’s a public record.”
Barry Smith, who helped craft Nevada’s Public Records Act, stated, “I’m not following the judge’s logic. This is clearly a matter of public record.”
Two voices within the Review-Journal that often disagree with each other, the paper’s editorial board and columnist Steve Sebelius, both criticized the judge’s decision. The editorial board wrote that the “poorly reasoned decision begs to be overturned,” while Sebelius produced a column entitled “Plenty of grounds to appeal teacher email decision.”
Concluded Becker:
The Nevada Public Records Act exists to further the democratic necessity of an accountable government — ensuring that public records are broadly accessible by the public. The Nevada Supreme Court needs to defend this principle by overturning the judge’s decision to grant CCSD’s motion to dismiss.
Case documents:
The Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation is a public-interest law organization that litigates when necessary to protect the fundamental rights of individuals as set forth in the state and federal constitutions.
Learn more about the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation and this case at http://npri.org/litigation/.
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LAS VEGAS — Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court Judge Douglas Smith has granted the Clark County School District’s motion to dismiss the Nevada Policy Research Institute’s public-records lawsuit seeking government-issued email addresses.
In response, Joseph Becker, the director of NPRI’s Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation, announced the Center will appeal. He released the following comments:
This ruling sets a dangerous precedent for those seeking information under the Nevada Public Records Act, and that’s why we will appeal this ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court.
Despite both the clear language of the law and a recent Supreme Court ruling finding that the Nevada Public Records Act’s provisions should be “construed liberally,” this district court has misapplied the law and denied our request for a public record.
Bizarrely, the court redefined NPRI’s request for CCSD’s government-issued email directory for government employees as not a request for records, but as a “request for a communication device or method.” While a list of email addresses may lead to communications, that’s distinctly different from requesting a communications device.
If allowed to stand, this harmful precedent will allow government agencies or judges to deny public-record requests based on their interpretation of the function the information will have once received. The law provides no such leeway — and for good reason. Public information should be available to the public upon request, not available only if government bureaucrats want that information released.
The district court also misapplied NRS 239B in ruling that the records NPRI requested are confidential. That statute does make email addresses that individuals provide to government agencies confidential, with some exceptions.
That’s the opposite of what’s happening here, however, because CCSD is creating the email addresses and providing them to its employees. NPRI seeks the list CCSD created, not anything citizens submitted to CCSD.
The Court is bound to enforce the plain, unambiguous language of NRS 239B.040, but the Court’s misreading of the law here is mystifying.
The Nevada Public Records Act exists to further the democratic necessity of an accountable government — ensuring that public records are broadly accessible by the public. Unfortunately, district courts have a history of limiting the public’s access to public records, only to be later overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court.
That needs to happen in this case as well.
Case documents:
The Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation is a public-interest law organization that litigates when necessary to protect the fundamental rights of individuals as set forth in the state and federal constitutions.
Learn more about the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation and this case at http://npri.org/litigation/.
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LAS VEGAS — Julianne Newman, a co-valedictorian of Foothill High School in Henderson, has been chosen as the third recipient of the Professor R.S. Nigam & NPRI Freedom Scholarship, the Nevada Policy Research Institute announced today.
NPRI awarded Julianne the scholarship in recognition of her academic excellence, volunteer and extra-curricular activities, including 300 hours of community service, and her well-written essay answering the question: “What impact would raising taxes have on the economy in general, on Nevada's unemployment rate and on struggling businesses and families?”
“It was a privilege to award this scholarship to Julianne,” said Swadeep Nigam, who has generously funded the scholarship program. “Her academic achievements, several hundred hours of volunteer work and excellent essay on the destructive impacts of raising taxes made her a worthy winner. Julianne continues the tradition of talented and accomplished scholarship recipients.”
“Julianne’s essay and achievements set her application apart from the field,” said NPRI President Andy Matthews. “It’s great to be able to reward such a talented young person as she is about to enter one of Nevada’s fine universities.”
Beginning in the fall of 2013, Julianne will be attending the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in business.
Professor R.S. Nigam, the scholarship’s namesake, was a director of the Delhi School of Economics at the University of Delhi, a visiting professor at the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a senior fellow at the University of Wisconsin, in addition to academic engagements in Europe, the West Indies and Asia, including North Korea. The scholarship was made possible through a generous donation from Professor Nigam’s son, Swadeep Nigam, who is an active member of NPRI and has resided in Las Vegas for the past 25 years.
Previous recipients of the Professor R.S. Nigam & NPRI Freedom Scholarship include Katarina A. Krouse and Daniel Waqar.
“This scholarship and its third recipient are a fitting way to honor Professor R.S. Nigam, a man devoted to education and who has taught at UNLV and around the world,” said Matthews. “We appreciate this opportunity to honor Professor Nigam, and also to help provide Julianne with assistance in continuing her education.”
NPRI will offer its fourth annual Professor R.S. Nigam & NPRI Freedom Scholarship to eligible high school seniors in Clark County in the spring of 2014.
Photo cutline: Swadeep Nigam awards Julianne Newman the Professor R.S. Nigam & NPRI Freedom Scholarship.
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