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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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National Survey Finds 70 Percent of Union Members Support Regular Votes to Recertify Unions

For Immediate Release
Contact Michael Schaus, 702-222-0642

 

LAS VEGAS — Today, the Nevada Policy Research Institute is highlighting the results of a new study by Dr. Lloyd Corder of CorCom Inc, comparing union employee workplace experiences and satisfaction in Right-to-Work and non-Right-to-Work (Union) states. Findings include:

  • More than 70 percent of union employees support increased accountability through regular votes to recertify their union.

 

  • Nearly 80 percent of union members agreed that employees who opt out of union membership should be able to represent themselves in negotiations with employers (a policy known as “Workers Choice”).

Additionally, the study found that union employees in Right-to-Work states have similar satisfaction levels with wages and workplace conditions compared to those in Union states, casting doubt on union leaders’ criticisms of Right-to-Work laws. These responses include:

  • 77 percent of union members in Right-to-Work states were satisfied with the working conditions set by their contract, compared to 71 percent of those in Union states. 

 

  • Nearly 70 percent of union members in Right-to-Work states were satisfied with the wages negotiated in their contract—a nearly-identical percentage to those in union states. Similarly, 59 percent of union members in Right-to-Work states said their union was helpful in improving workplace safety–compared to 57 percent in union states.

“Union bosses just lost one of their favorite talking points: that union workers are unhappy under Right-to-Work laws,” said Michael Schaus, communications director of the Nevada Policy Research Institute. “And this study makes clear that union employees are hungry for even more freedom and accountability at work.”

 

Union employees (1,687) were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and surveyed between April 24th and May 2nd, 2017. The study results have a margin of error of 4 percent (Right-to-Work states) and 3 percent (Union states).

 

For more information, visit EmployeeFreedomWeek.com. To view the full study, click here.

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District Court Judge invents reasons to protect member of the government-class

For Immediate Release
Contact: Michael Schaus, 702-222-0642

CARSON CITY, NV — Ignoring a 2004 AG advisory opinion, a 1967 binding Nevada Supreme Court precedent and the plain language of the state constitution, District Judge James Russell Tuesday dismissed a separation of powers lawsuit against State Senator Heidi Gansert.

“Judge Russell seemed determined to protect a member of the political class, irrespective of what the law says,” commented Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation 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.

Judge Russell dismissed the lawsuit in a bench ruling, saying in part that because other legislators would be negatively impacted by any potential ruling, the suit should have named every single lawmaker similarly employed in the executive branch as “necessary parties.”

“Essentially, we were told that in order to sue Senator Gansert for a constitutional violation, the Plaintiff must file similar suits against every other potential violator.” explained Becker.

“However, in 2004, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled in Heller v. Nevada Legislature that such is simply not the case.”

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.

A 1967 Nevada Supreme Court decision, on the other hand, makes it clear that strict adherence to the separation of powers provision is vital to preservation of individual liberty. The court explained that even ministerial function by persons conducted across branches violates Nevada’s separation of powers clause. And a 2004 Attorney General Advisory Opinion authored by then-Attorney General Brian Sandoval advised that attempts to hold positions in more than one constitutional branch, as Gansert is attempting, are patently unconstitutional.

“Rather than following binding legal authority, however, the judge treated a proffered LCB opinion as law,” explained Becker. “Apparently the non-binding LCB opinion held more weight with Judge Russell than the actual text of the Nevada constitution or the Nevada Supreme Court opinions, which interpreted that constitutional provision in Plaintiff’s favor.”

The Judge’s order will likely be filed within the next two weeks, at which time CJCL and Plaintiff Douglas French will determine whether or not to appeal this issue of critical importance to all Nevadans. 

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The window for teachers to opt-out of union membership is almost here

For Immediate Release
Contact Michael Schaus, 702-222-0642

LAS VEGAS — With the two week window allowing for Nevada teachers to opt out of union membership quickly approaching, the Nevada Policy Research Institute is preparing to launch a social media campaign to inform educators and support staff of their options.

“The teachers union has done its best to make opting out of union membership as difficult as can be,” said Nevada Policy Research Institute Communication Director Michael Schaus.

“Giving teachers a mere two weeks — in the middle of summer vacation no less — is hardly what someone would call accommodating.”

In order to opt out of their unions, teachers must do so during a two week period in the middle of summer. In most cases, if teachers do not submit an opt-out letter to their union or district between July 1st and July 15th, they will be forced to keep paying dues until next year’s opt-out window.

“At the end of the day, many teachers may prefer to stay in the union, and they have the right to do so,” said Schaus. “But not every teacher feels like they’re actually getting the value they deserve from membership. In the end, unions aren’t the only resource for teachers — and they certainly aren’t always the best.”

Clark County teachers, for example, pay as much as $800 per year for union benefits — benefits that are often inferior to the benefits offered by alternative, non-partisan educator associations such as the American Association of Educators.

Schaus says that there are many teachers who are thankful for NPRI’s campaign to let teachers know they have a choice about union membership. Since NPRI began its annual campaign in 2011 to remind teachers of their right to leave the union, more than 5,000 teachers have chosen to do so.

“The bottom line is, Nevada is a state that allows workers to choose for themselves whether or not they want to be a part of the union,” said Schaus.

“The only caveat is that teachers need to know how to do so — and let’s face it, the unions aren’t in a hurry to get that information to their members.”

Click here to download opt-out letters. 

 

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Small local pension fund gets high marks for transparency

For the first time ever, a Nevada public pension fund complied with a public records request for basic pension payout data without wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on protracted legal battles.

Despite a balance sheet roughly 1/100th the size of the state pension fund (NVPERS), the Las Vegas Valley Water District (LVVWD) retirement plan had no problem fulfilling a request for information documenting plan members’ names, pension amount and related data — information which is public under Nevada state law as well as in the vast majority of states nationwide.

This stands in stark contrast to NVPERS, which spent years defying a state Supreme Court order to release similar information; first by submitting false testimony to the Court about the location of the responsive data, and then by reengineering their records to avoid complying with future requests for the very information that the Supreme Court ordered disclosed.

Created in 1959, the LVVWD retirement plan is similar in structure to NVPERS. The main reason the plans have remained separate is that NVPERS members are not enrolled in Social Security, while LVVWD members are. Consequently, NVPERS offers richer benefits, which LVVWD offsets by the combination of being able to draw Social Security in addition to the less generous district pension upon retirement.

The 2016 pension report reveals that the District paid out $21.7 million in benefits to 538 former employees. The top three pension payouts went to:

  1. Former general manager Patricia Mulroy: $213,858
  2. Former deputy general manager Richard Wimmer: $143,013
  3. Former human resources director Patricia Maxwell: $136,101

The average pension for those who worked at least 30 years was $65,676, while the maximum Social Security benefit for a person retiring at full retirement age in 2016 was only $31,668.

"While the District’s approach to transparency is vastly superior to NVPERS — and we certainly applaud it — the two plans share the same financial difficulties plaguing most U.S. state and local pension plans nationwide," explained Fellner. 

For the 2017 fiscal year, the LVWWD plan had a funded ratio of around 71 percent — far below the 100 percent minimum target that the American Academy of Actuaries recommends.

The plan currently costs around $31 million annually, or roughly an extra 28 cents for every dollar in regular pay — an amount paid for entirely by the District on behalf of their employees.

And like NVPERS, these costs assume annual investment returns of 8 percent — an accounting method rejected by public pension plans in over 100 countries, as well as the federal and private pension plans in the U.S.

To view the entire database in a searchable and downloadable format, please visit TransparentNevada.com — the state’s largest public pay database.

For more information, contact Nevada Policy Research Institute Transparency Director Robert Fellner at RF@NPRI.ORG or 702.222.0642.

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Political games kill nation’s most promising educational choice program

For Immediate Release
Contact: Michael Schaus, 702-222-0642

LAS VEGAS, NV — The Nevada Policy Research Institute sends its deepest regrets to the thousands of families that will be left without educational options, now that Education Savings Accounts are officially dead in the state legislature.

“It disheartening to see that, for many lawmakers, politics are more important than the needs of individual children,” said NPRI Communication Director Michael Schaus.

According to Schaus, political games and backroom deals ultimately killed the Governor’s proposed ESA fix, SB506.

“It was disheartening to see so many political special interests cheering the fact that 10,000 families won’t have educational options that better suit their children,” Schaus said.

“It’s equally as disheartening to see that Governor Sandoval has refused to entertain a special session — essentially waving the white flag on what would have been the single most impressive educational choice program in the nation.”

While ESAs were killed in a back-room agreement among senators of both parties, a one-time increase was given to the current tax-scholarship program for low-income families, The Opportunity Scholarship Program, of $20 million over the next two years.

“It’s being portrayed as a silver lining to an otherwise outright surrender by Sandoval and a handful of pro-ESA Republicans. But, for more than half the students who were counting on ESAs for their educational future, it is no such thing.” said Schaus.

“At the end of the day, political expediency got in the way of lawmakers standing up for all Nevada students in need of choice.”

The loss will have a long-lasting impact on Nevada’s future generations, according to Schaus.

“We were on the verge of seeing a gold rush of innovation flood the state with universal ESAs. Now, we’ve taken a giant step back toward the tried-and-failed status quo,” Schaus said. “It’s a sad narrative for a state that has repeatedly failed to provide quality education for our younger generations.”

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Media Mentions

All Media Mentions

CCSD Administrators Hiring Outpaces Teachers over Past Decade

Policy director, Geoff Lawrence, was interviewed about CCSD’s hiring trend.

This North Las Vegas official quit in May. He made $1M anyway

Las Vegas Review-Journal article featuring interview with Policy Director, Geoff Lawrence

November Could Determine Future of Ranked Choice Voting in US Elections

Daily Signal article featuring quotes by Nevada Policy President, John Tsarpalas

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