general fund

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval wasted no time getting to work after being sworn into office today, signing an executive order freezing many proposed administrative regulations as evidence that Nevada is a business friendly state.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – There will be no fee increases of any kind in Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval’s budget when it is presented to lawmakers next year, Chief of Staff Heidi Gansert has confirmed.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – The chairman of a panel created by the Legislature to assess Nevada’s long-term future had some bleak words today for lawmakers unless action is taken to develop a skilled workforce and improve public education.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – When it comes to the budget problems looming for many states over the next two years, a report released this week by the National Conference of State Legislatures makes one point very clear: Nevada is No. 1, and not in a good way.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Long-time Nevada tax expert Carole Vilardo said says she does not see how the state can move Nevada’s public employee retirement system to a defined contribution plan in the upcoming legislative session.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Despite the need for drastic spending reductions to balance Nevada’s budget, the government program that provides health care to the poor continues to expand, consuming a growing share of the state’s scarce state revenues.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – A panel of private sector fiscal experts today projected the Nevada state general fund will have about $5.3 billion in tax revenues to spend on government services for the next two years.
The Nevada Economic Forum spent the day making projections for gaming, sales, business and other major tax revenues for use by Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval and the Legislature in crafting a balanced budget for the two years beginning July 1, 2011.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval said today he will make it a priority as governor to encourage businesses to relocate to Nevada from neighboring states where taxes have been raised to deal with the economic slowdown.

Republican Steve Martin, whose neck-and-neck race with incumbent state Treasurer Kate Marshall will be decided Tuesday, recently answered some questions about his candidacy in an e-interview with the Nevada News Bureau.

Dozens of Nevada’s nonprofit groups, service providers and others met this week in Reno and Las Vegas to consider the looming threat of deep cuts to the state budget cuts which threaten to eliminate or dramatically reduce health care, education, and human services.

Service agency and nonprofit directors from Lyon and Storey counties attended the Monday meeting, hoping for insights on how to plan for the upcoming deep cuts to Nevada’s public education, health and social services that will hit the rural areas especially hard.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors today approved $106,255 plus a 5 percent contingency to fund the Arlington Square ice rink for the coming season.

Parks and Recreation Director Roger Moellendorf said they are looking at leasing to own the ice rink equipment this year, thus reducing the cost for future years, and the contingency was requested to account for the additional costs.

The item was originally discussed two weeks ago and postponed because the supervisors preferred the ice rink be funded through redevelopment funds rather than the general fund.

The Arlington Square ice rink will be back on the agenda for the Carson City Board of Supervisors meeting Thursday starting at 8:30 a.m.

The ice rink issue was postponed two weeks ago so the city staff could present the project to be funded by redevelopment funds instead of though the city's general fund.

We will have the live video of the meeting here. The agenda is here.

Under a proposed state budget plan, four of Nevada's museums operated by the Division of Museums and History would close, including the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, said Peter Barton, acting administrator for the Division of Museums and History.

Other museums on the proposed state budget chopping block are the Nevada Historical Society in Reno, the state's oldest museum which opened in 1905; the Lost City Museum in Overton; and the Nevada Northern Railway Passenger and Freight Depot in East Ely.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors voted to delay a decision on funding the downtown ice rink to give staff the time to work out details for having the funding come from redevelopment funds instead of the general fund.

At today's Board meeting, Supervisor Shelly Aldean made the motion to send the issue back to staff, commenting earlier that, "It gives me heartburn to fund this out of the general fund."

The Carson City Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal to operate the Arlington Square Ice Rink for another season at the board's Oct. 7 meeting.

According to the staff summary, "This request is to expend $192,730 from the General Fund to support the operations of the Arlington Square Ice Rink for the 2010-2011 season. Staff is estimating that the ice skating rink will bring in $86,475; therefore the net subsidy will be $106,255."

Monday's Advisory Committee Meeting included a lot of new details about the Nugget Project that we are still looking through.

For those who haven't seen the presentation by P3 Development, you can read it here.

I think they made the best pitch for this project so far, and showed that this somewhat scaled-down version is at least close to being feasible, given the revenue constraints requested by members of the Board of Supervisors.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau

Carson City Manager Larry Werner told the Board of Supervisors today that they are hoping to wrap up work on cost estimates for the city's portion of the Nugget Project by the end of the day.

Werner said that these cost estimates would determine if they had a feasible project or not, compared with the funding that would be provided by a 1/8 cent sales tax increase and tax increment financing.

He told the board that the results would be presented to the citizen's committee, whose next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 27.

Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Nevada state agencies and public education have submitted budgets calling for nearly $8 billion in spending for the upcoming two years, about $3 billion more than what is expected to be available with current tax revenues.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
Former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller said Monday it is unrealistic for both major party candidates for governor to say they won’t raise taxes in the upcoming 2011 session.

Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Democrat gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid told the Nevada News Bureau yesterday there are other options for moving the state out of its current budget crisis besides increasing taxes and cutting programs.

Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Nevada could find a way out of its $3 billion revenue shortfall next year without raising taxes, but only if the Legislature looks at restructuring the way the state and local governments provide and pay for services, the state’s top fiscal officer said yesterday.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – State Budget Director Andrew Clinger yesterday painted a bleak picture of Nevada’s next two-year spending plan, saying under current tax and spending levels every single program and agency except for education would have to be eliminated to balance the budget.

CARSON CITY – A new tax amnesty program initiated July 1 by the Nevada Department of Taxation has brought in $3.4 million in previously uncollected revenue through Tuesday, with just over two more months to go.

CARSON CITY – Nevada’s taxable sales fell 1.9 percent in May over May 2009, a decline following April which saw the first positive month for the economic indicator in 20 months, the state Department of Taxation reported today.
May statewide taxable sales totaled $3.1 billion compared to $3.2 billion in May 2009.

CARSON CITY – The major funding gaps Nevada and other states have been forced to address in their current budgets will continue in the next cycle even as tax revenues finally begin to show signs of life, a national report released today says.
Signs of “delicate” revenue improvement will be offset by the loss of federal stimulus funds, posing ongoing challenges to lawmakers in 2011 and beyond, says the report from the National Conference of State Legislatures’ (NCSL).

CARSON CITY – Nevada state agencies and their employees appear to have gotten the message about the budget crisis, at least as far as the accumulation of overtime is concerned.

CARSON CITY – A dozen Nevada government entities spent more than $1.7 million taxpayer dollars last year to hire lobbyists in Washington, DC and have racked up nearly $400,000 in expenses in the first quarter of this year, according to data gathered by the national group Center for Responsive Politics.

CARSON CITY – With Gov. Jim Gibbons dissenting, the Board of Prisons yesterday delayed action on a proposal to close Nevada State Prison, meaning it will continue to operate for at least the next several weeks.

CARSON CITY – With Gov. Jim Gibbons dissenting, the Board of Prisons yesterday delayed action on a proposal to close Nevada State Prison, meaning it will continue to operate for at least the next several weeks.