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Billion dollar increase in Nevada’s pension debt will reduce teacher pay, public services

Pension debt is going to take an even bigger chunk out of Nevada’s government budgets in the coming years, forcing cuts in spending that would otherwise go to schools, parks, road repair and public safety.

In 2015, the nearly $1.5 billion that taxpayers sent to PERS consumed more than 10 percent of state and local governments’ combined own-source revenue, which was the second-highest rate nationwide.

But that number is set to increase dramatically beginning in 2019, as a result of today’s decision by the PERS board to slightly pull back the veil that shrouds the true size of the System’s debt.

“While today’s decision by the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada (PERS) is a small step in the right direction, it ultimately highlights a fundamentally broken governance structure that encourages costs to be pushed onto future generations,” said Robert Fellner, transparency research director for the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

“Years of relying on flawed accounting metrics designed to understate the System’s true cost have left today’s public workers and taxpayers holding the bag. This isn’t just unfair, it’s also an incredibly inefficient way to attract and retain talent — particularly teachers,” he added.

Moving closer to acknowledging the true size of PERS debt, said Fellner, means that current public employees and taxpayers will have to pay more in the coming years — while receiving no added benefit of any kind — to bail out the System’s past funding failures.

Future hires will fare the worst, he said.

A 2015 Legislative change designed to stem the state’s exploding retirement costs reduced the PERS benefits that will be offered to most public employees, but only those hired after July 1, 2015.

This means new Nevada teachers will have to pay some of the highest rates in the country to PERS, in order to help fund the much-richer benefits their veteran counterparts are, or will be, receiving.

Unfortunately it’s quite simple, said Fellner: “New hires will have to pay more, while getting less.”

Scholars at the Bureau of Labor Statistics have noted that such a counterproductive compensation structure is almost certain to negatively affect the quality and retention of current teachers.

“To be clear,” Fellner added, “the problem isn’t today’s decision to slightly reduce the degree by which the System’s costs are obscured. The problem is a governance and accounting structure that encourages defraying costs as long as possible, and then dumping those costs onto a generation of taxpayers and public workers who received none of the services.”

Absent fundamental pension reform, he said, today’s scenario is destined to repeat itself in coming years, but with more devastating effects — particularly in the case of a market downturn.

“Left unchecked, Nevada’s pension albatross will continue devouring tax dollars at the expense of other public services like education, public safety and road repair.

“Nevertheless, successful past reforms exist that Nevada lawmakers can learn from,” he said, citing reforms enacted by the federal government as well as more recent examples in Arizona and Utah.

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U.S. Civil Rights Commission cites NPRI research in call for civil asset forfeiture reform

In a recent announcement calling for civil asset forfeiture reform at the federal level, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights cited research from the Nevada Policy Research Institute as evidence of the harms caused by the practice.

Specifically, the Commission — an independent, bipartisan, fact-finding federal agency — condemned forfeiture as having "racially disproportionate outcomes" that leaves most victims with "no practical way to contest the seizure of such assets," based on NPRI research.

Civil asset forfeiture is a practice whereby law enforcement can seize property — and personally profit from its subsequent forfeiture — without even charging the owner with a crime. By imposing the presumption of guilt on innocent property owners who have had their property seized, civil asset forfeiture perverts one of the foundational principles of the U.S. justice system, according to NPRI policy analyst Daniel Honchariw.

NPRI is thrilled to learn that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has joined the overwhelming, bipartisan consensus of those calling for an end to civil asset forfeiture.

"The principle of being innocent until proven guilty is a bedrock of the U.S. justice system and must be defended at all costs," says Honchariw. "The Commission is correct to call for an end to the abusive and un-American practice of civil asset forfeiture, and we are honored to have produced research that has helped shine a light on how the program actually operates."

Click here to read the NPRI report cited by the Commission and here to read more on forfeiture from NPRI.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Michael Schaus at 702.222.0642 or email at ms@npri.org.

The Nevada Policy Research Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank that promotes policy ideas consistent with the principles of limited government, individual liberty and free markets. To learn more, visit www.npri.org.

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Northern Nevada government defies state’s public records law to keep its own Board in the dark

 

In a recent board meeting, the Incline Village General Improvement District (IVGID) Board Chair and General Counsel confessed to illegally withholding public records from IVGID Board Treasurer Matthew Dent.

This shocking admission makes clear that the previously reported IVGID policy of denying access to emails older than 30 days — a felony-level crime under Nevada state law — was merely one example of an agency-wide hostility to transparency and disregard for the state’s public records law.

Initially, District General Counsel Jason Guinasso claimed that the financial record requested by Treasurer Dent — known as a Chart of Accounts — did not exist, stating that “…the fact is it doesn’t exist and — It just doesn’t exist. There’s no Chart of Accounts. There is nothing to be seen.”

This demonstrably false claim was laughed at by Board Chair Kendra Wong who admitted that, “It has to exist for us to have an accounting system.”

Yet Chair Wong still supported denying Dent access to the very financial documents necessary to carry out his responsibilities as Board Treasurer, based on the fear that doing so would allow the public at large to see how IVGID spends their money.

Specifically, Wong expressed concern that “if [the Chart of Accounts] gets shared with us, it becomes a public document.”

Nevada Policy Research Institute Transparency Director Robert Fellner says Wong’s claim is simply false.

“Nevada state law explicitly defines public records to include ‘information stored on a computer,’ regardless of whether or not that information has been previously shared with others.”

Even more troubling than IVGID’s chronic ignorance of Nevada’s public records law, however, is the District’s relentless effort to operate without public oversight — even going so far as to keep Treasurer Dent from performing his duly-elected duties.

“It is baffling to see a government agency so repeatedly and brazenly defy state law in order to keep its books hidden from the public — including its own Board Treasurer,” commented Nevada Policy Research Institute President John Tsarpalas.

“We implore the Attorney General’s Office to take swift action to ensure that IVGID is brought into full compliance with Nevada’s public records law.”

For more information, please visit NevadaJournal.com to read the full report.

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NPRI appeals decision in Separation of Powers case

CARSON CITY — The Nevada Policy Research Institute’s Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation (CJCL) today appealed District Judge James Russell’s decision dismissing a lawsuit against State Senator Heidi Gansert for violating the state constitution’s separation of powers clause.

“Defying the clear language of the Nevada constitution, Nevada Supreme Court precedent, and a 2004 Attorney General Advisory Opinion by then-attorney-general Governor Brian Sandoval, Judge Russell relied upon a non-binding opinion from the Legislative Counsel Bureau in his ruling from the bench—but we believe the actual words of the state constitution should matter more,” explained CJCL Director Joseph Becker.

Representing plaintiff Doug French, The Nevada Policy Research Institute’s Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation filed the suit in February, alleging Gansert is violating Article 3, Section 1 of Nevada’s State Constitution by occupying a seat in the state legislature while also working in Nevada’s executive branch as Executive Director of External Relations for the University of Nevada, Reno.

Article 3, Section 1 — the separation-of-powers clause in Nevada’s constitution — reads quite clearly:

The powers of the Government of the State of Nevada shall be divided into three separate departments,—the Legislative,—the Executive and the Judicial; and no persons charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any functions, appertaining to either of the others… [Emphasis added.]

“Judge Russell seemed determined to protect a member of the political class, irrespective of what the law says,” commented Becker at the time of the ruling.

Becker further stated that Judge Russell’s dismissal flatly ignored the legal arguments put forward in the case, instead choosing to adopt as law a Legislative Counsel Bureau opinion.

“We believe the plain language of the constitution should take precedent over a non-binding LCB opinion, or the preferences of the ruling class,” commented Becker. “And we look forward to the appeals process finally giving further legal clarity on the issue.”

To read more about Judge Russell’s dismissal, click here.

Click here to view a copy of the Notice of Appeal and here to view a copy of the Case Appeal Statement.

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NPRI files public records complaint with AG’s office

In response to last week’s Nevada Journal report — which found that the Incline Village General Improvement District’s records retention policy violates state law — the Nevada Policy Research Institute has chosen to file a formal complaint with the Attorney General’s office.

NPRI president John Tsarpalas issued the following statement:

“Nevadans deserve maximum transparency from their government, which is something the state’s public records law is supposed to provide. But this law means nothing if governments are free to defy it without consequence. The Attorney General must ensure all governments provide their citizens with the maximum transparency they deserve, and that the law demands.”

Click here to read more about the Incline Village General Improvement District's efforts to conceal their records from the public.

For more information, please contact NPRI transparency director Robert Fellner at 702.222.0642 or rf@npri.org.

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Incline Village government commits felony-level crimes to conceal public records

In a stunning admission reported earlier today exclusively by the Nevada Journal, staff at the Incline Village General Improvement District (IVGID) openly confessed to destroying or concealing public records as a matter of policy — a felony-level crime under Nevada state law.

After area resident Mark Smith submitted a public records request for, among other things, copies of all email correspondence between IVGID general manager Steve Pinkerton and the district’s trash company, Waste Management, IVGID staff responded by only providing copies of emails from the past 30 days, citing a “retention policy” whereby any emails older than 30 days were either destroyed or withheld from production.

Yet, NAC 239.155 expressly requires that local governments permanently retain the email correspondence of executives like IVGID general manager Steve Pinkerton. The only exception to this mandate is if a local government adopted their own written records retention schedule, which had received the approval of the State Library, Archives and Public Records Administrator. Yet, by IVGID’s own admission, their 30 day retention policy received no such approval.

As Nevada Journal managing editor and NPRI senior vice president Steven Miller reported:

If any of the requested emails still exist in some form of digital backup, IVGID would have illegally concealed them, a category C felony under Nevada law, specifically NRS 239.320. If the emails were destroyed, that, also, is a C felony under the same statute.

In addition to the District’s policy violating the letter of the law, it also eviscerates the spirit and intent of the state’s public records law, as this exact case demonstrates:

On August 1, 58 days after the initial request, IVGID finally turned over a handful of emails. Although Smith’s request had covered multiple years, with special attention to 2016, the district had released only a dozen recent emails. And the earliest was dated a couple of weeks after his June 4th request.

“So the two problems,” Smith told Nevada Journal, “are, one, they didn’t [provide] anywhere near [the records requested], but, two is, they received my email on June 4th, and after they received my request, they deleted emails.”

In responses to the allegations of criminality at IVGID, NPRI communications director Michael Schaus released the following statement:

It is imperative that local governments be transparent and are held accountable to the people they serve. In order to keep taxpayers in the dark, IVGID has chosen to blatantly and flagrantly defy state law. The State must immediately investigate IVGID’s unlawful actions and take any means necessary to bring them into compliance with the state’s public records law.

Be sure to visit NevadaJournal.com or click here to read the story, IVGID’s efforts to conceal public records gets bizarre, in its entirety.

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Media Mentions

All Media Mentions

Nevada families hungry for lower food costs

Opinion piece by Nevada Policy president, John Tsarpalas

A Brighter Tomorrow through Business Regulations

Nevada Policy article on business regulations in the state of Nevada

The Government Took Their Home. Now, a Family’s Lawsuit May Change Nevada’s Forfeiture System

Quote from Outreach and Coalition Director, Marcos Lopez.

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