Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Politics:

State of the State preview: Look for big announcement and lots of tax talk

Sandoval1

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval delivers the State of the State address at the Legislature in Carson City on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013.

Gov. Brian Sandoval will address old problems and announce big news in his State of the State speech tonight.

He will call on lawmakers to fund high-profile budget items and outline solutions to revamp funding for state programs despite the state’s estimated $162 million shortfall. Sandoval also will mix in details about a secret Tesla-sized economic development deal rumored to be coming to Nevada.

Sandoval’s speech marks the public release of his executive budget proposal. It will be one of the many fiscal blueprints state lawmakers use to determine how the state will fund its agencies through 2017.

The State of the State precedes legislative sessions in Nevada. It’s as much pageantry as it is a public forum for the executive branch to ask the legislative arm of government to fund programs at the governor’s requested levels.

The speech is also a government pep rally of sorts. There will be plenty of sunny rhetoric about Nevada accompanied by clapping and smiling from Supreme Court justices, lobbyists, statewide office holders and lawmakers in the audience.

Sandoval will speak at 6 p.m. in the Legislature’s building in Carson City. Here’s what you need to know about his third the State of the State address, which will be streamed on CSPAN.

Big developments

Sources close to the governor promise Sandoval will publicize big news for the state’s economic development. They are keeping their lips sealed about the details until the governor delivers. But expect a big-name company and lots of jobs to define the news. In his last State of the State, Sandoval name-dropped companies who made homes in Nevada under his watch: Urban Outfitters, Apple, NOW Foods and Ameriprise Financial. Watch to see who it is this year.

Education

With the failure of the margin tax ballot initiative, the state's business leaders and politicians agree that education is the top priority for the 2015 session. Sandoval is poised to call for increased education funding. But whether he calls for tax increases to fund the proposal is one of the big questions people are waiting for him to answer in the speech.

In his State of the State speeches, Sandoval devoted significant time to his education platform. In his budgets, he’s pushed for funding all-day kindergarten, English language learning programs and school choice programs. In 2013, he proposed $135 million in new investment while having pictures of school children flash on a screen and inviting a public school student who overcame a troubled childhood.

Taxes

Will the governor call on the Legislature to extend the $550 million sunset tax package? That is one of the biggest questions about his budget. Sandoval has extended it twice after former Gov. Jim Gibbons ushered the so-called temporary measures into law during the recession. And whether Sandoval will do so again is up for debate. Eliminating the tax package, a mix of hikes on sales, modified business and other taxes, will increase the state’s deficit to more than $700 million. Extending it, though, is likely to upset fiscal conservatives.

News reports on Wednesday indicated Sandoval would extend the tax package while also creating a new business licensing fee that would generate an additional $430 million — enough to ostensibly cover the projected shortfall and allow lawmakers to increase education funding.

Aside from the sunsets, the states politicos are pontificating a major overhaul in the state’s tax structure, a model that’s been panned as outdated, too reliant on gaming and not sustainable for another fiscal disaster.

Outside groups have pledged support. The Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce hired a D.C. think tank, the Tax Foundation, to conjure up some solutions. The Nevada Policy Research Institute and the Nevada Taxpayers Association have also chimed in with their own ideas.

Health care

In past state of state speeches, Sandoval vowed to do what few Republican governors dared to: create a state-run health care exchange and expand Medicaid. The expansion of medicaid will give an estimated 500,000 Nevadans health insurance by the end of the year. The federal government is paying for all new Medicaid enrollees until 2016. Then states will have to pay 10 percent of the costs by 2022. The large number of enrollees was unexpected by Nevada officials. The governor and state lawmakers have pledged to find funding solutions to pay for the increase in Medicaid recipients.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy