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Nevada lawmakers declare fiscal emergency due to coronavirus

Updated May 13, 2020 - 5:34 pm

CARSON CITY — Nevada will be able to tap into its reserve funds after state lawmakers on Wednesday declared a state of fiscal emergency, a procedural step that followed a similar declaration from Gov. Steve Sisolak this week.

With the mutual declarations made, the state soon will start transferring money from its rainy day fund, which has about $400 million, to the general fund to help offset some of the revenue losses the state has experienced because of the economic shutdown that was spurred by the rapid spread of COVID-19.

The state is estimating shortfalls for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, from $741 million to $911 million. In early April, Sisolak told state agencies to submit plans to cut their budgets by up to $687 million over the next two fiscal years. That included calls for a 4 percent cut to agency budgets for the current fiscal year, which would total roughly $170 million in savings.

The state Board of Examiners, which is made up of Sisolak, Attorney General Aaron Ford and Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, is scheduled to meet Thursday afternoon to vote to transfer money from the state’s rainy day account to the general fund. An agenda for the meeting does not say how much the state is looking to pull out from its reserves as of Wednesday afternoon.

The lawmakers on the Interim Finance Committee will meet again Monday to discuss and approve that request from the Board of Examiners.

Details still to come

Asked about the status of the cuts by state Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno, Governor’s Finance Office Director Susan Brown said the details of the budget cuts are still being worked out.

Kieckhefer said that because the state is planning to tap its reserves, a move that he and all other lawmakers on the committee voted in favor of, that it would be “appropriate to ask about where that money will be spent.”

And the state risks lessening the effect of those cuts the longer it waits it waits to put them in place, Kieckhefer added.

The committee chair, Assemblywoman Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, however, cautioned that acting too quickly could be problematic too.

“If we don’t do this right, we could do more harm than good for the state,” Carlton said.

Arts grants

The legislative committee also approved several grants that came from Nevada’s share of the roughly $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill.

Roughly $440,000 will go toward supporting arts organizations hit by the pandemic to help those organizations — such as the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival and Neon Museum — pay rent, salaries and administrative costs.

The arts industry in Nevada supports roughly 40,000 jobs, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. An analysis from Americans for the Arts showed that of the 170 arts organizations that reported, 97 percent said they had been affected by event cancellations because of the pandemic and that the sector has lost roughly $3.4 million in revenue.

The funding was approved by lawmakers, with Assembly Minority Leader Robin Titus, R-Wellington, and Assemblymen Glenn Leavitt, R-Boulder City, and Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, voting no.

The committee also approved $32.9 million from the relief package that will go toward helping child care centers in the state stay afloat, with Titus as the only “no” vote.

Elisa Cafferata, deputy administrator of the Division of Welfare and Supportive Services, said child care centers in the state have had a difficult time qualifying for the Paycheck Protection Program, and many were concerned that their margins weren’t sufficient to convert the federal small-business loans into grants.

“The major goal of the funds is to keep child care businesses open and to make sure those that have temporarily closed can come back,” Cafferata said.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.

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