On Thursday, budget discussions for the future of Carson City’s economy led by Carson City Chief Financial Officer Sherri Russell-Benabou can be boiled down to one quote: We have no idea, and we just hope for the best right now.
This is because, despite the state requiring budgets to be finalized and submitted by June 1, the state has not actually provided updated sales tax revenue estimates for Carson City — or any municipality — to base their prospective budgets on.
And this meeting was held prior to the report coming out that the state is now projecting $191 million less in overall revenue, which is the first time since the Great Recession that projected revenue has decreased in the middle of a legislative session.
The final presentation and adoption of the FY 2026 budget will come before supervisors on May 27, before being sent off to the state and the Department of Taxation on June 1.
Revenues
The city’s budget is largely made up of two revenue sources: property taxes and Consolidated Sales Tax, referred to as CTax.
Property taxes are set at a specific rate based on assessed valuations, and produce a specific estimate of revenue to the city.
Assessed values have been skyrocketing in Carson City in recent years. In 2017, property valuations brought in around $23 million to the city, but in 2025, revenues are expected to land somewhere around $35 million.
Overall, property taxes are up around 5%, which is a good thing for the budget.
However, property tax only makes up around 31.7% of the total city budget, whereas CTax makes up around 40.9%.
And CTax is the main problem.
Sales and CTax
CTax comes from sales tax of specific goods like alcohol, tobacco products, and more, as well as real property transfer taxes, government services tax, and relief taxes. Allocations are the taxes derived from a formula that the makers of it themselves describe as “complicated.”
There’s also sales tax, which had gains up until Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, at which point it dropped by 5.4% in 2023, and had remained at a virtual plateau since the 2022 year.
“We’re not increasing,” Russell-Benabou said. “They’ve kind of plateaued there, and this year in 2025 … it’s been a very big struggle to estimate what our sales taxes are going to be.”
She said this is because the state is implementing a new revenue system, and “that revenue system is not giving out the taxable sales data yet.”
“They say when they get it, they will go back and we’ll be able to get all of that data. So we’re all anxiously — all of the counties are anxiously anticipating that data, because currently we are getting a distribution every month, but we don’t know what that represents. We only got half of a distribution in November, and so we don’t know if that distribution is catch-up from November. We don’t know if our sales taxes for December and January have gone up or down. We have no idea. We just get a distribution every month and hope for the best right now.”
Russell-Benabou said this makes it nearly impossible to estimate what the forecast is for FY 2026 when the last data she received from the state was in October 2024 — a full six months prior to the budget deadlines.
She said the state has projected a 0.75%, adding “I don’t know how they’re projecting it, they don’t have any numbers either,” but Russell-Benabou said Carson City always errs toward the side of being conservative in their budget estimates and kept the estimate flat at 0%.
She said they also projected a 2% increase for Carson City in 2026, and Russell-Benabou said she decided to cut it to 1% “because I just don’t know what’s going on, and there’s no way they can either, so I’d rather have the money come in later and spend it than have to come back and say ‘oh my god, I over-projected.’”
Whereas property tax is reasonably steady in its increases, and can be projected barring huge shifts in the world economy such as the 2008 crash, sales tax and CTax are extremely volatile in comparison.
Russell-Benabou said that the 20-year history of the CTax shows the volatility of it, which depends entirely on the state of the economy year over year.
“It looks like we’ve been doing gangbusters, you know, straight up since 2012 there, but you can see there was a plateau in 2021 to 2024, and that might have been the downturn,” she said. “It’s kind of known that every ten years the market adjusts, and we have a little bit of a downturn.”
She said projections nationwide indicate that Nevada may not have as significant of a downturn as the rest of the nation, adding “but I don’t know because I don’t have sales tax numbers, so it’s very hard to project anything right now.”
The drop at the state and city level in sales tax this year is attributed to the Trump administration’s economic policies and tariff measures, according to a report by economists who presented at the legislature Thursday.
Expenditures
According to projections, revenues are not currently keeping up with projected expenditures, the majority of which go towards salary and benefits. The largest portion goes towards public safety, which makes up over a quarter of the total budget.
The FY26 projections show expenditures at $137 million, which the city can hit by keeping the ending fund balance (the amount of money left in the bank by the end of the fiscal year for emergencies and capital) at 18.1%, or $19 million.
However, by FY30, with expenditures estimated at $144 million, that ending fund balance would be reduced to 8.3%, meaning only $10 million would be designated to the ending fund balance.
“I do hope that [CTax] comes in better than I’m projecting, but unfortunately I don’t know, so this is a conservative safe way to go this year,” Russell-Benabou said.
The increase in expenditures includes staffing for the new, legally-mandated district and justice courts as well as the new Emergency Operations Center, which is currently under construction in central-east Carson City.
Mayor Lori Bagwell asked if there are any legislative concerns for unfunded mandates that may be coming from the state level, and Russell-Benabou said it’s possible, but that they weren’t “as significant” and that staff isn’t sure they’re going to pass either way.
“But it’s another concern that we could have legislation pass that cost Carson City another couple hundred thousand,” Bagwell said.
Russell-Benabou said unfortunately, until session is over, she can’t forecast what any additional costs might be coming from the state.
Capital Investments
Russell-Benabou also included the forecast for potential capital investments, which is typically building, replacing or improving city-owned real property like buildings, facilities, or vehicles.
“It’s looking pretty dismal,” Russell-Benabou said as a start to the presentation.
She said that for FY2026 and FY2027, there is around $1.1 million each year for fleet (vehicle) replacements, which will drop to $355,000 in 2028, and then falls off entirely in the projections for FY29 and FY30.
The Extraordinary Maintenance Fund is funded by a 0.05% property tax rate, which should bring in between $940,000 to $1.15 million through FY2030.
The Capital Projects Funds for the 2024-25 year is estimated at around $44.3 million, which drops to $13.8 million in FY26, which also decreases the ending fund balance by 99.9% from $28.8 million in 2023-24, to $7.46 million in 2024-25, and a projected $5,000 for FY26.
However, the reason for the large difference isn’t mainly attributed to the economic downtown, but rather because the largest capital project currently, the EOC/new fire station, is budgeted for 2025 and is slated to be completed before FY26. If, however, it ends up finishing in 2026, then the budget will be moved over into that year’s fund.
“The drop is because we budget all of the projects, we find the money, and we budget the revenue and expense in the current year in 2025 because we’re breaking ground on that likely in May or June,” she said. “So when we start the Williams [Complete Street project] off, we want to make sure all the funding is there. We don’t know exactly how much we’re going to spend in May and June, so until we know that … we don’t roll forward the unused portion.”
Specialty Funds
Specialty funds make up specific project funds that are funded by designated taxes such as the Quality of Life fund for parks and open space, or the fuel tax for regional transportation projects.
Quality of Life Fund
Voters instituted a 0.25% sales tax for the Quality of Life (QOL) Initiative in 1996, which is broken into three portions: 20% on park maintenance, 40% on park capital, and 40% on open space.
The QOL FY26 fund budget is projected at $7.61 million, with the largest portion of $2.6 million going toward the purchase of water rights under the Open Space category.
Other expenses include parks salaries and benefits ($1.45 million), services and supplies ($853,000), equipment ($331,503), park construction ($630,000) and more for a total expenditure of $7.46 million.
Regional Transportation (RTC) Fund
The RTC fund is largely funded from a $0.09 per gallon fuel tax, which is estimated to bring in $3.98 million in this fiscal year and the FY26 year.
Street Maintenance Fund
The Street Maintenance Fund is funded by the state’s 5.35 cents-per-gallon fuel taxes, the 1 cent County Option fuel tax, and 0.25% sales tax.
This year’s total revenue is estimated at $8.84 million, which includes a $2.5 million beginning balance for capital projects, while FY26’s budget is estimated at $6.86 million with a beginning balance of $640,000.
Asks
The Assessor’s Office asked for an additional property appraiser. Kimberly Adams, Carson City Assessor said there has been “tremendous amount of growth and new construction” in the city, and 25 years ago when she began working at the Assessor’s Office, there were only 18,000 parcels. Now, there are over 21,000 which could turn into 22,000 by FY26 or FY27, she said.
She said the office has maintained two or three property appraisers for real property and “the workload is, to say the least — we’re drowning, just like every other department.”
She said they also reorganized some of the duties of the Chief Deputy Assessor to free up some of her time to assist the appraisers with new construction, and personal property appraisers with personal property audits.
Those duties were given to the office specialist position in January. The increased job responsibilities consumes over 60% of her workload, and Adams asked for the position to be reclassified as a senior office specialist to reflect the additional workload and responsibilities the employee is working.
The Sheriff’s Office requested a new public safety specialist position, which will be handling a portion of the transition into the new public safety system, which includes a replacement of both the entire software and hardware system for records management, CAD, and jail management. They will also be overseeing the systems moving forward.
The Sheriff’s Office is also requesting an additional MOST team deputy, which will bring the total amount of teams to Carson City up to three. The state will provide funding for the clinician that is paired with the MOST deputy to respond to calls involving mental health issues.
Finally, they are also requesting a sheriff’s support specialist, which is a civilian position within the Sheriff’s Office who handles things like garnishments, FOIA requests and public records.
In hourly asks, they are requesting funding for an hourly background investigator and a 10% raise for hourly employees.
The District Attorney’s Office is requesting a reclassification of the Juvenile Supervising Deputy District Attorney position to a Chief Juvenile Deputy District Attorney.
They are also asking for an increased fee amount for the contract between the city and Axon Software Interface which provides a “reliable method for the seamless transfer of digital data” from the CCSO to the DA’s office for storage and evidence. The contract would be for ten years, and was last approved in February 2025. This would be an increased amount of $25,673.76 over what was previously approved ($256,737.60).
The City Manager’s Office is requesting a reclassification of the Community Relations Coordinator position to Community Relations Manager. The initial position was created to develop, maintain and monitor the city’s website and social media and to delve print and media materials. However, since that time the position has unofficially become the city’s primary Public Information Officer, and regularly works on press releases.
The Public Defender’s Office is requesting the reclassification of an Office Manager position to Department Business Manager with a 10% increase. It was created in 2023 and has since grown and taken on additional responsibilities.
They are also asking for a reclassification of the Senior Legal Assistant to Supervising Legal Assistant, and additional funding for training and travel costs.
All asks and justifications can be viewed here:
In all, the total general fund requests amount to $753,579 which leaves $746,421 in budgeting for new positions.
The budget discussions will continue until the final budget approval meeting at May 27, 2025.
