Tom R. Smedes / AP
Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, right, speaks before signing an election worker protection bill into law as Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar looks on at the old Assembly Chambers in Carson City, Nev., Tuesday, May 30, 2023.
Published Thursday, June 1, 2023 | 10:44 p.m.
Updated Friday, June 2, 2023 | 12:49 a.m.
CARSON CITY — State employees are poised to receive a 12% pay increase after Gov. Joe Lombardo on Thursday signed a budget bill setting worker salaries for the upcoming biennium.
But the governor vetoed another key government spending bill, known as the Appropriations Act, which includes more than $7 billion to fund state agencies. The veto came as negotiations with top legislative Democrats over funding for one of Lombardo's pet projects, school choice programs, never came together.
“Governor Lombardo has chosen politics over policy, punishing ordinary Nevadans by vetoing a budget bill that invests in essential education, health care, and public safety services,” Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas, said in a statement.
“Preschoolers, college students, Medicaid recipients, veterans, public safety and health care professionals, and all Nevadans deserve better than a Governor who is willing to leverage their well-being for political gain. We will reintroduce and pass this budget bill again before the end of the session."
If a deal between Lombardo and legislative Democrats isn’t finalized by midnight June 30, the end of the state’s fiscal year, Nevada government would effectively enter into a shutdown, Cannizzaro told reporters last month.
In his veto letter addressed to Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager provided by the governor's office, Lombardo cited a "78 percent increase in funding for the Legislative Branch" and a "lack of detail" around the spending increase as his reasons for not approving the bill.
Raises for state workers will take effect July 1, with another 4 percent raise due for the 2024-25 fiscal year. The legislation also contains provisions for a $250 quarterly retention bonus. Officials say the state has an employee vacancy rate of nearly 20 percent, and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle say the pay bumps are long overdue.
“Our state employees are deserving of these raises,” Lombardo said in a tweet announcing the signing. “And I’m grateful we were able to deliver this crucial bill.”
The bill also allocates $37 million for two-grade pay increases for members of law enforcement within the Department of Public Safety, as well as more than $24 million over the biennium for the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Passage of the budget bills came as lawmakers failed to advance AB 400, Lombardo’s primary public education legislation. The governor is seeking more than $50 million in allocations for Opportunity Scholarships, which use tax credit vouchers to finance charter school tuition for low-income students, establish an Office of School Choice and fund transportation to charter schools.
Lombardo on Thursday also issued late vetoes for a trio of bills that, among other things, would have temporarily capped rent increases for senior renters and people with disabilities, criminalize the act of submitting false electors to officials certifying the state's presidential election outcomes, and offered summer school to public school students for the 2023 and 2024 school years in an attempt to offset pandemic-induced learning loss.
After the veto of SB 133, which prohibits a person from creating a false slate of presidential electors, serving in a false slate of presidential electors or conspiring to create or serve in a false slate of presidential electors — punishable by up to four years in prison — Democrats slammed the move as one that would make it easy to subvert the will of the voters.
The bill was drafted in response to a slate of Nevada Republicans who submitted a list of fake electors falsely asserting former President Donald Trump was the winner of the 2020 election in Nevada. Among that group was Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald and Clark County GOP Chair Jesse Law — whom Lombardo recently endorsed for another term as head of the county party.
“Governor Lombardo will do anything to protect election deniers and fake electors because for him, scoring political points with his base is always more important than upholding democracy or the rule of law,” Nevada State Democratic Party spokeswoman Mallory Payne said in a release. “For years, Lombardo hasn’t hesitated to stand with the most extreme members of his party who have spread conspiracy theories that led to a deadly insurrection.”
On Wednesday, Lombardo signed the state’s sprawling $12 billion public K-12 budget and another bill authorizing the spending of federal funds, including a record $10.8 billion for Nevada’s Medicaid program. In return, lawmakers passed two bills that revamp student discipline and so-called restorative justice practices.
A final budget bill, Assembly Bill 521, has yet to be voted on by the Senate. That measure requires a two-thirds majority for passage because it renews a statewide property tax necessary to fund capital improvement projects.
Legislative Republicans have opposed budget bills out of protest to stand in solidarity with Lombardo. Democrats are one vote shy in the Senate to override Lombardo’s vetoes but do hold a supermajority in the Assembly.
“When this legislative session began, it was my hope and expectation that policy would come before politics and Nevadans would come before partisanship. With tonight’s veto, the governor made it clear that would not be the case,” Yeager, D-Las Vegas, said in a statement.
“Assembly Bill 520 showed that we value and support Nevadans who are too often left out and left behind. The budget made significant investments in critical programs and services that Nevada’s communities rely upon, such as early childhood education and Victims of Crime. Despite the veto, we remain committed to passing a budget that improves Nevadans’ healthcare, education, and livelihoods,” he said.
