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 — In response to this morning’s special Legislative Session called by Gov. Brian Sandoval, NPRI Deputy Policy Director Geoffrey Lawrence released the following comments:
Calling a special session to increase taxes, while abandoning education reforms, is the perfect encapsulation of the Nevada Legislature’s work in 2013.
For taxpayers, it's extremely disappointing that Gov. Brian Sandoval would call a special session primarily to ensure that sales-tax rates are raised again in Clark County. At 8.25 percent, Clark County will now have one of the highest sales-tax rates in the Western United States.
The sales-tax hike sought and received by Gov. Sandoval was even greater than what lawmakers in the state Senate had agreed to during the regular session. Senators had agreed to limit the tax hike to four years; Sandoval's proposal makes it permanent.
It is very instructive to remember what happened just months after an initial 0.25 percent sales-tax hike was implemented for “more cops” in 2005: Metro struck a new union contract that hiked pay 21.8 percent across the board. Now, Metro has nearly 900 officers taking home more than $150,000 in total compensation, according to salary data at http://transparentnevada.com.
Further, a legitimate question exists as to whether the so-called “more cops” tax is derived from valid constitutional authority. Article 4, Section 18 of the Nevada Constitution stipulates that any bill “which creates, generates, or increases any public revenue in any form” must receive two-thirds support from each chamber of the Legislature or receive majority support by a vote of the people. However, while this bill received two-thirds support, it does not actually increase any public revenue — it purports to authorize Clark County commissioners to do so, even though the constitution grants them no such authority. To be valid, the Legislature needed to vote directly on the tax.
Other disappointments from the 2013 regular and special sessions included the failure of Gov. Sandoval and lawmakers to agree on even a small $5 million program that would offer school choice to students from low-income families and a $2 million allocation to hire new teachers in Clark County from the highly successful Teach for America program.
Gov. Sandoval had claimed that these important and needed reforms were priorities for his administration. However, when Democratic leaders in the Legislature stonewalled even these small efforts, he raised no audible protest.
Instead, he rewarded them with a special session to raise taxes.
In short, there are many reasons for taxpayers to be disappointed with the 2013 sessions, and almost no silver linings. Taxpayers can only hope for stronger advocacy following the next election.
LAS VEGAS — Salary data for more than 132,000 government employees statewide, for the 2012 calendar year, is now available at TransparentNevada.com, a Nevada Policy Research Institute website that makes government-spending data easily accessible to taxpayers.
The new 2012 data — covering 58 government jurisdictions throughout Nevada, at state, county and city levels — includes several newly added jurisdictions.
“Thanks to the information available at TransparentNevada, Nevada’s citizens, lawmakers, and media members are now able to easily see exactly how much government employees take home in compensation,” said Andy Matthews, president of NPRI. “Many government employees make staggering amounts.”
“For instance, more than 1,200 government employees throughout the state received over $200,000 last year in total compensation,” he added. “That list ranges from a Henderson deputy police chief who made over $559,000, a Clark County assistant district attorney who took home more than $522,000, a Las Vegas IT director who received over $356,000 and a Washoe County district health officer making over $209,000.
“Compensation for government employees isn’t outrageously high only because retiring employees legally fleece taxpayers by cashing in unused sick leave. Government compensation is inflated for many government workers, with over 22,100 making more than $100,000 in total compensation.”
Matthews noted that Las Vegas City Manager Elizabeth Fretwell’s $386,784 compensation package more than doubled the $181,586 earned by Gov. Brian Sandoval. Also earning more than the governor in total compensation were a human resources director making $220,908 with the Southern Nevada Water Authority, a community services director in Washoe County making $184,343 and the parks and recreation director in Henderson making $219,402.
In all, over 2,000 government employees made more than Sandoval last year.
The payroll data provides important information as the Legislature is considering measures to raise taxes so public employees can be paid even more.
“The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department currently wants the Legislature to raise taxes to balance its budget, but one glance at the numbers on TransparentNevada shows that Metro’s budget problems come from inflated salaries,” said Matthews. “High compensation comes standard in Metro, with 348 employees taking in over $175,000 and 2,204 employees making over $125,000.”
In 2012, 2,289 state employees made over $100,000 in total compensation, even with many of them taking six unpaid furlough days. Now the Legislature is considering a proposal to raise taxes while boosting state worker pay by eliminating furloughs.
Matthews added that one bright spot for taxpayers was that the number of Clark County firefighters earning over $200,000 has dropped from 199 in 2010 to 92 in 2012. However, in Las Vegas the number of firefighters earning over $200,000 dramatically increased from 79 in 2011 to 130 in 2012.
“The data on TransparentNevada is a vivid reminder that government employees are living high on the hog while taxpayers struggle,” said Matthews. “Although government employee unions frequently have made a big show of ‘contract concessions,’ where one of their many scheduled salary increases is skipped, this data leaves no doubt that thousands upon thousands of government employees are overpaid.”
Most government jurisdictions fulfilled requests for public-employee data, Matthews said.
“It was encouraging to see more jurisdictions than ever before fully comply with Nevada’s public-records law and provide full salary and benefit information,” he said. “Unfortunately, officials in a few places — such as Mesquite and Nye County — did not. These jurisdictions needlessly opened themselves to potential lawsuits.”
TransparentNevada, on the Web at http://TransparentNevada.com, was first launched in September 2008 and has served as a unique source of government-financing information for thousands of citizens, journalists and elected officials.
Matthews said that the site will be adding salary data from even more jurisdictions in the coming weeks.
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CARSON CITY — NV Energy’s proposed “NVision” plan, currently being considered by legislators in Carson City, will increase the cost of electricity, does not include a cap on rate hikes caused by increases in natural gas prices and forces ratepayers to pay NV Energy for stockpiles of coal it has purchased but no longer wants to use. Those are the findings of a new NPRI analysis of Senate Bill 123, which contains the NVision plan.
The analysis, authored by NPRI deputy policy director Geoffrey Lawrence, is entitled NV Energy plan would impose big, new hidden costs on ratepayers: ‘Fuel switch’ plan resembles a‘bait‐and‐fuel‐switch.’
It details how SB 123 would increase the monopoly earnings of NV Energy, while forcing ratepayers to shoulder the risk of higher natural gas prices.
“NV Energy's NVision plan would increase the cost of electricity and reduce regulatory oversight by the Nevada Public Utilities Commission while incentivizing waste and inefficiency,” said Lawrence. “There is no cap on rate hikes caused by an increase in natural gas prices, which are historically volatile. These quarterly ‘fuel-cost adjustments’ would not be part of general rate hearings.”
Lawrence noted that the plan would be a financial boon for NV Energy, which, because of government regulations guaranteeing a return on equity of 10.5 percent, has a perverse financial incentive. NV Energy is financially rewarded if it can get state lawmakers to impose more costly and inefficient production methods, such as the NVision scheme.
“Ratepayers would have to reimburse NV Energy for constructing new power plants and also pay NV Energy for the capital costs of coal-fired power plants it's no longer using and even for stockpiles of coal it has purchased but no longer wants to use,” stated Lawrence.
Lawrence then described how a similar plan in Colorado is already raising electricity prices and imposing severe economic consequences.
“Economic modeling of a similar plan in Colorado found that Colorado ratepayers will now pay between 11 to 50 percent more for power and that this would result in the net loss of between 280,000 and 1,180,000 jobs,” said Lawrence.
“As currently envisioned, this plan would be a government-mandated wealth transfer from Nevada’s ratepayers — including poor families and struggling businesses — to Nevada’s government-mandated energy monopoly.”
Lawrence concluded that open competition on the retail electricity market, modeled after Texas, is needed to lower Nevada’s regionally high electricity prices.
The full analysis — NV Energy plan would impose big, new hidden costs on ratepayers: ‘Fuel switch’ plan resembles a ‘bait‐and‐fuel‐switch’ — is available at http://www.npri.org/docLib/20130522_NVEnergyPlan-BaitandSwitch.pdf.
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CARSON CITY — Democrats in the Nevada Senate introduced legislation today to raise taxes on private-sector payrolls throughout the state and use the revenue to fund early-childhood education programs.
The proposal would raise rates under the Modified Business Tax (MBT) from 1.17 percent to 1.5 percent for firms with more than $250,000 in annual payroll and to 2 percent for mining firms.
When Democrats in 2009 increased the MBT from its original rate of 0.63 percent to 1.17 percent and passed it over then-governor Jim Gibbons’ veto, they said it would be temporary and would sunset on July 1, 2011.
Then, in 2011, with Gov. Brian Sandoval’s consent, legislators pushed the sunset date to July 1, 2013. And this year, Gov. Sandoval agreed to extend it once again — to July 1, 2015.
Now, all pledges for the tax to ever sunset appear to be forgotten by Democratic leaders.
Addressing the proposal, NPRI Deputy Policy Director Geoffrey Lawrence released the following comments:
Like their Senate Republican colleagues, Senate Democrats have based their tax-hike proposals on a faulty premise. Senate Democrats and Republicans alike erroneously claim that the failures of Nevada’s public schools are the fault of taxpayers who don’t pay enough into the bumbling system. Both caucuses willfully ignore objective facts provided by the federal education department, which show that Nevada is actually a relatively high spender for its region.
At $10,449 per pupil in 2011, Nevada spent substantially more on education than a majority of its neighbors. Arizona spent $9,559. Idaho spent $8,601. Utah spent $8,446. Yet, each of these neighboring states boasts test scores and graduation rates superior to Nevada’s.
Among Western states, only California posts worse test scores than Nevada, and California spends roughly $700 more per pupil than does Nevada. That only underscores what is apparent nationwide — that there is no correlation between spending levels and student performance.
That’s because states like Nevada are politically hidebound and spend very inefficiently — while the other states have implemented the policies closely associated with higher student achievement.
These policies include: increased school choice, expansion of charter schools, meaningful teacher evaluation systems and allowing alternative teacher certification. It’s particularly relevant that Nevada’s public schools spend substantially more than it would cost to educate children in privately run schools that significantly out-perform nearly all public schools. In 2008, the median private-school tuition level in Nevada was estimated at only $5,965.
Research has further shown that the particular programs for which Senate Democrats are eager to increase funding — class-size reduction, full-day kindergarten and early education — have largely failed to produce lasting gains in student achievement. That’s why NPRI has focused on the school-controlled variable with the highest impact on student achievement — teacher quality.
Responding specifically to the tax components of the proposal, Lawrence said:
It’s ironic that the Senate Democrats are proposing to give away millions in tax credits to Nicholas Cage and other wealthy film producers, claiming that tax breaks “create jobs,” while at the same time, they plan to raise taxes on native businesses. If lower taxes “create jobs,” then what effect do they expect higher taxes to have?
It’s too bad that Senate Democrats can no longer rely on the sage advice of former state senator Sheila Leslie, who correctly described the MBT as a “disincentive to hiring.”
In fact, the MBT is a poorly designed tax that suppresses wage growth, distorts the tradeoff between labor and capital and has produced highly volatile revenues. That’s why NPRI has proposed removing the tax altogether — not increasing its rate.
This proposal also flies in the face of advice from the Legislature’s own consultants. The famed 1989 Price-Waterhouse report on the state’s tax structure, for instance, declares that no industry should be singled out for punitive tax rates and that the net-proceeds-of-minerals tax that currently applies to mining is optimally designed.
It’s telling that lawmakers are so willing to discard their own tax consultant’s advice whenever they think they can wring more money out of taxpayers.
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LAS VEGAS — In response to the news that Nevada’s Economic Forum has increased its projections of tax revenue for the next two years by around $40 million, NPRI’s Vice President of Policy Steven Miller released the following comments:
It’s certainly encouraging to see Nevada’s economy recovering — even if slowly.
But it’s also important to recognize that this recovery, such as it is, is occurring despite the economically destructive policies to which out-of-control politicians at the federal and state levels increasingly love to subject us all.
What recovery is occurring, is occurring only because the great majority of Nevadans and Americans — the individuals in the productive economy — get up and work every day to put food on their family tables. Bit by bit, they’ve been getting the state — and the nation — out of the economic crisis that the political class and its special-interest crony insiders plunged this nation.
That being the source of these funds, Nevada lawmakers need to be clear that this projected state income is not theirs — to be doled out as “one shots” to their political allies.
As we’ve all witnessed for decades, Nevada’s problems cannot be solved by spending more on inefficient government programs, just because those who fatten on those programs want to keep fattening. For the last 50 years, for example, Nevada politicians have tried for to fix education by nearly tripling inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending. It hasn’t worked.
Why would anyone think that giving across-the-board pay raises to employees in a failing school system would increase student achievement?
It’s important to remember that all increases in tax revenue represent financial opportunities that the state is taking away from individuals and families.
Politicians from both parties are also once again positioning themselves to ignore their promises to taxpayers by extending the “sunset” taxes. At a time when so many families and businesses are still struggling with a stagnant economic, lawmakers should be holding taxes level or cutting them to encourage economic growth. At a minimum, the additional tax collections projected by the Economic Forum should be used to offset the sunset tax increases.
Miller noted that NPRI’s Solutions 2013 publication contains solutions in 39 policy areas that allow government to achieve better results for less money.
Read more:
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LAS VEGAS — Paying unusually effective teachers $200,000 a year will transform the teaching profession in Nevada by attracting more top-level talent to the classroom. That’s the bold idea spelled out by former Nevada Superintendent Dr. James W. Guthrie in a new Nevada Policy Research Institute report. Guthrie was Nevada’s first appointed Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The study, entitled The $200,000-a-Year Classroom Teacher: A New Paradigm to Rescue Nevada Public Education, details how to create — and dramatically reward — a new cadre of high-performing teachers.
“For far too long public education in Nevada has been stuck in a downward spiral,” said Guthrie. “Nevada’s education system needs a dramatic change to shake the system loose and displace entrenched special-interest groups.”
“Because teachers are rewarded for their longevity and academic credits, instead of their effectiveness, many of America’s most talented college graduates bypass teaching for professions that recognize and reward results. Offering top teachers the opportunity to earn $200,000 a year would change that paradigm and lead the cream of America’s academic crop to consider teaching in Nevada.”
Guthrie noted that identifying teachers who would be eligible to apply to become Master Teachers hinges on Nevada adding a value-added system for student and teacher assessment at a low annual cost of $3.75 per year per student. The best value-added modeling systems, while adjusting for differences in students’ backgrounds and prior performance, reveal how much academic value a teacher adds and thus help identify exceptionally effective educators.
Teachers who score in the top 10 percent would be eligible to apply to become Master Teachers, under Guthrie’s proposal. Qualifiers would also agree to remain as classroom instructors, work on a contract of 44 weeks a year, hold Master Teacher contracts only for a year or two at a time with renewable status, and have their students’ value-added test scores routinely reviewed in order to justify that they are among the highest performing 10 percent of Nevada’s teachers.
Most importantly, Master Teachers must agree to instruct at schools determined to be most in need of their services.
“With increased compensation must come increased responsibility and accountability,” said Guthrie. “There’s no lifetime tenure with the Master Teacher program. If a Master Teacher does not continue to meet these stringent criteria, he or she must not continue to be rewarded at the higher compensation level.”
Guthrie estimated that while the program could cost Nevada as much as $200 million a year, it could be funded on a revenue-neutral basis by redirecting spending that currently goes into programs of questionable consequence, such as class-size reduction.
“The evidence is perfectly clear,” he said. “Teacher quality is the most important factor in student achievement. An excellent teacher can add 18 months of learning in a year to a student, while a poor teacher adds only six months.
“In contrast, across-the-board class-size reduction is a waste of limited resources. Even the liberal Center for American Progress notes in The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction that states waste billions of dollars ‘by pursuing across-the-board reductions in class size.’
“Many legislators disregard evidence on class size to the detriment of tens of thousands of Nevada’s students. Disregarding factors that actually increase student achievement is a tragedy that disproportionally harms Nevada’s poorest and most vulnerable students.
“The $200,000-a-year classroom teacher proposal puts the focus and taxpayers’ limited resources into what matters most — high-quality teachers.”
NPRI President Andy Matthews praised the study, saying, “The current system of public education isn’t working, and to be transformed, it needs bold ideas like Dr. Guthrie’s call for a $200,000-a-year classroom teacher.
“Unlike Nevada’s current education system, which blindly funds salary increases across the pay scale, this proposal rewards the best, inspires the rest and instills accountability.”
The full study, The $200,000-a-Year Classroom Teacher: A New Paradigm to Rescue Nevada Public Education, is available at http://www.npri.org/docLib/20130426_200000_teacher_report.pdf.
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