WHY ACCOUNTABILITY MATTERS
WHY ACCOUNTABILITY MATTERS
Every two years, Nevada’s legislature convenes for 120 days in Carson City to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the state. As Nevada continues to grow and evolve, the priorities and needs of its residents are constantly changing.
While each legislative session is unique, what remains consistent is the steadfast commitment by the Vegas Chamber to ensure that employers, employees, and their families are heard in the halls of the State Legislative Building. The Chamber ensures this commitment by taking a legislative approach centered on practicality, fairness, and accountability.
Accountability. An obligation or willingness to accept responsibility and to account for one’s actions. During the 2025 session, the Chamber’s legislative priorities are focused on the principle of accountability, The Chamber believes accountability is at the core of larger policy conversations that will occur throughout the session and is fundamental to successful governance and policy making. This principle is a factor that should be applied to a broad base of legislation and policy areas.
Accountability matters. It matters to taxpayers that fund the state’s budget. It matters to parents and students who need a school system that is committed to student achievement. It matters to small business owners that need policies that are fair and help them operate their businesses. It matters to Nevadans who want a strong economy that spurs the creation of good jobs.
Accountability in government means
• Asking questions to fully understand proposed policies; exploring the pros and cons of enacting legislation.
• Being open minded about the unintended consequences an action may have on employers, employees, and the economy.
The Vegas Chamber will work with the Governor, legislators, policy experts, and other stakeholders to help ensure that proposals are fully understood before they are enacted.
VEGAS CHAMBER’S GUIDING LEGISLATIVE PRINCIPLES
• We are committed to preserving a business climate where all employers and employees can succeed and thrive;
• We will advocate for and pursue public policies that will foster economic development, growth, and job creation; and
• We believe in policy priorities that promote entrepreneurship and innovation, support small business success, and spur job creation as part of economic recovery for all Nevadans.
ACCOUNTABILITY TO JOB CREATORS, EMPLOYERS, AND ENTREPRENEURS
One of the Chamber’s most important legislative priorities is ensuring Nevada remains a right-to-work state for employees. Nevada has been a right-to-work state since 1953, meaning this employment practice has been in place for over 70 years. The Chamber believes this policy has worked well for decades because it is fair and balanced.
Fundamentally, every working Nevadan should continue to have the right to decide whether they wish to pay a portion of their paycheck toward union membership dues. The government should not have a say in how an employee spends their money, nor should anyone be required to pay a union membership or organization just to have a job. That decision should rely solely on the employee. Only the employee should decide on how their paycheck should be spent.
It has been demonstrated throughout Nevada’s history that employees should have freedom of choice. Nevadans at the state ballot box and state legislators have rejected state ballot measures and legislation that would change or repeal our right-to-work law on multiple occasions. Such a mandate on employees is unfair and contradictory to employees’ rights. Legislation related to employees should help strengthen our state’s economy – not hurt it. The simple truth is that repealing right-to-work would only hurt employees and their families.
ACCOUNTABILITY IN K-12 EDUCATION SYSTEM AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
Reforming the K-12 education system is essential to Southern Nevada’s long-term economic growth and success. K-12 education has an essential role in economic development and diversification. It is also an important factor in attracting new businesses to the region.
The Chamber believes there needs to be greater accountability in the operations and management of local school districts. The Chamber is not alone in the belief that the current system is not working. The K-12 system needs greater state oversight and increased transparency to ensure it is being held accountable for its use of billions of taxpayer dollars along with greater data transparency and accountability from local school districts to the state.
For decades, the Chamber has advocated for additional legislation that will facilitate greater reform in governance, more accountability in dollars spent, and better student achievement results by local school districts. Nevada’s employers are one of the largest customers of the K-12 education system and they need students to be either college or career ready upon graduation.
In return, Nevada’s businesses help fund a sizable portion of public K-12 education through a variety of state tax funding mechanisms, including business licensing fees, modified business taxes, and the Commerce Tax, in addition to sales and property taxes just to mention a few examples.
The Chamber believes taxpayer dollars are best spent when they are directed towards specific programs in the classroom that include easy to understand, common sense measurables that must be reported by local school districts. Programs that have a proven record of results need to be maintained and supported. Dollars should be shifted away from programs that aren’t working and instead be directed to successful programs or new education initiatives.
The Chamber will continue to advocate for greater transparency, accountability measures, and performance metrics within local school districts. During this session, the Chamber will support legislation that will provide appointed school members the right to vote and hold officer positions within the Clark County Board of School Trustees. Appointed trustees have proven to be a good addition to the school board by offering thoughtful, pragmatic, and objective insight and guidance since joining the board last year.
Nevada’s students need and deserve the best teachers. The reality is there are exceptional teachers and schools within the Clark County School District. That is why the Chamber believes that effective teachers should be rewarded for their efforts and commitment for the success they have in the classroom. The Chamber is an advocate for rewarding these teachers to be compensated through a fully implemented merit pay for performance program. It also means that students and their parents should continue to have options to attend charter schools, magnet schools, career and technical academies, and open enrollment as well within the school district.
For the sake of our children’s future success, the Chamber will continue to collaborate with the governor and legislators to ensure dollars are directly benefiting students and teachers and not wasted by bureaucratic measures and costly systems that do little or nothing to improve student achievement. Employers are continually frustrated with their local school districts. Bold ideas must be embraced to address the core issues that have plagued school districts for decades before any additional investment is made. Greater accountability is essential to increasing student achievement in local school districts.
ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE STATE’S REGULATORY AND LITIGATION ENVIRONMENT
An important part of a state’s business climate includes its regulatory and litigation environment. It is important to protect the state’s business climate against a movement that would create a frivolous and hostile legal system towards employers. A fair and predictable legal climate for employers is important to job creation and business growth. This means ensuring Nevada’s legal system does not become a deterrent to economic development or driving up costs for hard working Nevadans and their families.
This includes opposing legislation that will increase insurance costs for coverage by employers, encourage frivolous and costly lawsuits, and hold business to burdensome and expensive liability standards. All of these factors increase the cost for employers and take away money that could be used to reinvest in the business, increase worker salaries, or provide philanthropic support in the local community. The Chamber will continue to fight against legislation that would create a legal system that would harm employers and entrepreneurs with countless frivolous lawsuits or an unreasonable monetary judgment.
According to the U.S Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform’s Lawsuit Climate Survey, Nevada ranked 29th in the nation. Bills introduced this session could drop Nevada to the bottom of the list. The Chamber will oppose legislation that can undermine the existing legal structure of the state.
Efforts in the upcoming legislative session to repeal construction defect reform would negatively impact Nevada’s families. Those reforms, which were passed in 2015, amended the definition of construction defects, addressed indemnification issues, modified language to specifically detail defects and location,
removed attorney fees and clarified the process in submitting claims. The Chamber supported these reforms because of the need to restore clarity to the process, encourage prompt resolution of disputes, reduce litigation costs, and provide procedures that are understandable to all interested parties.
The Chamber believes that these reforms have assisted in the economic growth of the residential construction sector throughout the state. Doing away with these reforms will result in higher costs for homebuilders and potential delays in completing projects. It will also create an unnecessary hostile relationship between builders and homeowners. Repealing construction defect reform will increase the cost of buying a home, adding another financial cost for families that are already struggling to find housing that is affordable. Increasing the likeliness of litigation and lawsuits is not a good policy for Nevada’s families. Accountability will be key in blocking these harmful initiatives.
The Chamber is steadfast in its belief that it is not the role of government to create regulatory challenges that harm economic growth, increase costs, nor create additional burdens for Nevada’s families.
ACCOUNTABILITY IN PUBLIC RESOURCES AND TAX POLICY FOR TAXPAYERS
Every legislative session, the governor and state legislators are tasked with developing and funding a state budget for the next two years. They are required to balance the needs of the state and the services that are expected to be provided. The state benefited from unprecedented federal grant dollars during the 2023 legislative session, but there will be less money available for new programming, projects, and expenditures this legislative session.
It will be important to be careful how funds are allocated and spent this session, especially as federal COVID dollars run out because there will not be a large investment of dollars by the federal government like they previously did in 2023.
The Chamber has been a longtime advocate for greater accountability and transparency around how public funds are spent by state and local governments. The state budget needs to be sustainable for future years while ensuring there are reserve funds for times of economic uncertainty. In the spirit of accountability, the Chamber believes the budget must be objective in its forecasting of revenue, supports
the state long-term fiscal sustainability and services, and does not create unintentional fiscal hardships on taxpayers.
As policy makers look at the state’s budget, it is important to remember Nevada’s tax structure must be based on important tax principles, including being neutral, stable, equitable, and fair. To ensure accountability standards in tax policy, it is important to avoid penalizing specific industries or business sectors. A narrow tax base by its nature is prone to greater instability for the state during economically challenging times for budgetary and revenue purposes, when compared to a tax structure that is broad in design. It is important that the state’s tax structure is modern, transparent and easy to understand, especially for employers that contribute a vast amount of the state’s revenue.
The Chamber is also concerned about recent efforts to increase and expand the use of mandating additional prevailing wage and project labor agreements (PLAs) requirements on construction projects. It is also concerned about efforts to mandate community benefit agreements for public and private projects at the state and local levels of governments.
While the Chamber recognizes that at times it may be appropriate to use prevailing wages or PLAs on specific projects, it should not be mandated for all construction projects The same applies to community benefit agreements, the provisions of which should not be codified in state law but rather negotiated at the local government level. The provisions of those agreements are often vague, difficult to track, or lack accountability.
PLAs have historically been limited to a single construction project that is part of the community’s critical infrastructure. These are usually large-scale projects that require work to not be interrupted by labor disputes because they are a priority to be completed. Typically, PLAs are very prescriptive in nature and focus on union labor only, including declaring it a union project only, using the union for employee referrals, or only allowing certain subcontracting of work per the PLA. They can also require the employer provide contributions to employee benefit fund plans and other fiscal components to the union.
The Chamber has concerns about the expansion of PLAs, which would increase project costs. Additionally, the agreements limit non-union contractors’ ability to participate. For public projects, less com-
petition means higher costs for taxpayers because fewer bids are received which in turn leads to fewer projects being completed.
The reality is that smaller contractors, Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) and start-ups are not usually able to compete or bid for these jobs because of the financial barriers created by the PLAs. The agreements are anti-competitive and exclusionary. As there are efforts to diversify the contractor’s industry and make it more accessible to minority owned contractors, PLAs may be counterintuitive to these plans especially since a majority of minority-owned contractor and construction firms are nonunion. That is why the Chamber is opposed to a broad blanket approach that would mandate all projects use PLAs or require the use of a community benefits agreement in Nevada.
ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE INVESTMENT OF NEVADA’S FUTURE
The Chamber is an advocate for planning wisely for tomorrow and investing in Nevada’s future. This includes having funds set aside in state reserves for economically challenging times, ensuring that Nevada continues to increase its share of federal grant funds, staying competitive with economic development initiatives, and investing in strong transportation systems.
Southern Nevada’s business community has a legacy of supporting the construction and long-term funding of a regional multimodal and intermodal federal transportation system that promotes connectivity, increases productivity, reduces congestion, and improves safety. A strong regional transportation system helps the entire Valley stay more connected and allows for less congestion and better road safety for drivers and increased productivity for businesses.
That is why it has been important for local tax dollars to stay in Clark County and fund ongoing and necessary road improvements and expansions. It has allowed Southern Nevada to move people and products more efficiently over the last decade. These tax dollars have been spent in a method that has been done in a fair and well managed approach with high accountability and transparency standards.
However, there is still a great need for additional investment and enhancements along key transportations corridors in the community that still must be completed. These needed projects once completed will help to continue leverage the region’s existing resources and assets to grow businesses and create more jobs. The Chamber encourages continued transportation infrastructure investments to ease congestion and make commuting more efficient for residents and visitors in Southern Nevada.
The Chamber also believes there needs to be continued collaboration between the state, local workforce boards, educational institutions, and employers to support workforce development initiatives, training programs, and other certificate courses. The accountability for these returns on investments is to have measurable outcomes and matrices. Workforce programs can help strengthen our economy. That is why it is important to continue to work together on supporting workforce development and training programs that focus on career development.
Another important task for policy makers is to ensure that Nevada’s economic development approach is keeping pace with the times. That means identifying new economic development initiatives and tools that can be used by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and local regional economic development authorities throughout the state so they can attract new industries and businesses to Nevada.
The Chamber will continue to be a vocal and proud advocate of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV as well as the two private medical schools in Southern Nevada, Roseman University College of Medicine, and Touro University Nevada. Their combined success is essential to the health and well-being of our community’s healthcare system. That means that there must be a collaborative effort to improve Las Vegas’ low ranking of physicians per capita.
That is why the Chamber has been a long-term proponent to increasing Graduate Medical Education (GME) funding from the state and making the investment accessible to all three medical schools. Data has shown doctors typically remain in the community where they had their residency programs through GME. The more medical students that we keep in Nevada, the better our chances are to improve the healthcare system and the quality of care.
If we pass legislation with accountability as a guiding principle, we will build a stronger and more diverse Nevada together. During this legislative session, a responsibility falls upon each of us to make sure voices are heard on policy matters that impact employers and job creators. A strong employer and employee community means a strong Nevada. A stronger future benefits all Nevadans, a cause which the entire community can advocate for and champion in the halls of the State Legislature. There is a clear pathway to achieving this goal, and it can be done together.
Our pledge to you is that the Vegas Chamber will continue to be your voice, your advocate, and your champion at the State Legislature. Your success matters, Nevada’s success matters, and that is Why Accountability Matters.
BE ENGAGED. BE HEARD. HERE’S HOW TO GET INVOLVED:
CHECK YOUR INBOX
Each Friday, “The Rundown” newsletter will give you the latest breakdown of which bills the Vegas Chamber has been engaged with during the week at the legislature and how you can help the Chamber in its efforts.
BECOME A CHAMBER ADVOCATE
Get engaged with the Chamber Advocate program. Becoming a Chamber Advocate helps the Vegas Chamber tell your story. We want to make sure that legislators know exactly who will be affected by their decisions, and your input is essential to this process. Help the Vegas Chamber advocate on your behalf, and make sure Nevada’s job creators voices are heard loud and clear!
PLUG INTO THE CARSON CITY CALL
A monthly webinar with Vegas Chamber’s Government Affairs team gives you insights and information live from the Legislature. You will have an opportunity to ask questions and engage with staff. The Carson City Call will begin on Tuesday, February 4 at 11 a.m. The call will be held on the first Tuesday of every month at 11 a.m. during the legislative session. Register through our Events Calendar.
ENGAGE IN THE PAUL CALL
The Paul Call is a biweekly conference call with Paul Moradkhan, the Vegas Chamber’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs. Paul will discuss the issues important to you and your business. Hear the latest about what is happening in Carson City. The Paul Call for the legislative session begins on Thursday, February 6 at 11 a.m., and will take place every First and Third Thursday of each month at 11 a.m. during the legislative session. (Complimentary for President’s Club and Advocacy). Register through our Events Calendar.
ATTEND THE CHAMBER LEGISLATIVE DAY AND RECEPTION
Join the Vegas Chamber on Tuesday, March 25 for its biennial Legislative Day and Reception in Carson City. Legislative meetings will be held from 9am-4:30pm, with a reception held that evening at 5pm. To register for this members-only event, please visit Vegaschamber.com.
ANSWER THE CALLS TO ACTION
Be on the lookout for specific calls to action via Carson City Alerts. The Vegas Chamber will alert you, as a member, when a bill of particular importance to the employer community is scheduled to be heard. Please take the time to contact your legislators and let them know the impact a bill will have on your business, and that you stand with the Vegas Chamber and the business community. Alert your employees as well.
POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA
The Vegas Chamber will post regularly on Social Media about what is happening up at the legislature, so be sure to follow @lvchamber on Twitter, and @vegaschamber on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube to see the latest. Retweet the Chamber messages and consider posting your own social media posts and tagging the Chamber with #VCinCC.
INVEST IN BIZPAC
Contribute to BizPAC, the Chamber’s bipartisan political action committee. Hundreds of members, as well as Chamber staff and volunteers, support this PAC to ensure the business community’s interests remain in front of our elected officials. Contributions help elect pro-prosperity candidates and ensure a business-friendly operating environment in Nevada.