Packed Hearing Room for SB 201

The Senate Taxation hearing room was packed today for SB 201, the RTC-5 implementation bill. There were so many construction workers and labor union folks that showed up that a second hearing room was opened downstairs for the overflow.

The lineup included Mayors Bob Cashell and Gino Martini, County Commissioner John Breternitz, Reno City Councilman Dave Aiazzi, Derek Morse with the RTC, Norm Dianda with Q&D Construction, and developer Perry DiLoretto. I sat at the table right next to Skip Daily with the Laborer’s union, which doesn’t occur that often!

I pointed out that while we talk a lot about this bill creating 3,000 jobs, we don’t talk about what those 3,000 jobs mean to the rest of our Chamber members. The workers on these projects will have money to spend on the goods and services that our members provide.

The improved roads will allow all of us to get to work, home, and school quickly and safely.

SB 201 is also an economic development tool. While this Chamber works hard every day to ensure that our state’s tax structure remains business-friendly, we also need to ensure that our transportation system is adequate for our present and future needs. Companies looking to re-locate or expand their presence here want to be able to move their goods and their employees around the region efficiently.

The trucking association testified as neutral and the petroleum marketing folks had some issues. There was one Washoe County resident who testified in opposition to the bill, but she seemed to have more issues with how the sample ballots were distributed than with anything else.

While there were a few technical questions from some of the committee members, the reception seemed pretty positive.

The committee took no action on the bill today, but it needs to be out of there and to the floor by April 10th.

We really want to get this bill through as fast as possible so that we can start bonding projects and get people to work as soon as possible.

The Session has finally started...

It has been said that the Legislative session really started on Monday, which was the deadline for all the committees to introduce their bills. We finally know the lay of the land and the (somewhat) totality of what we have to deal with. While there is always the potential for leadership to introduce “emergency” bills, there is no way to quantify what those will be yet.

The next deadline is April 10th, when most bills must be through their first committee of introduction. This means that the next few weeks will be a flurry of activity.

I received a document the other day that has about 15 bills listed on it that could negatively impact the business community, 12 or so of those bills are workers comp related. There are some big deals in there and I will get more information out to Chamber members as I learn about them.

I took action on two bills today. The first was AB 313 in the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee. As I had to testify in another hearing, I signed in as opposed but did not go to the table. As you can see from the link above, this bill would limit the amount of late fees that a landlord could charge a tenant if he/she is late with their rent payment. While this bill only affects a certain segment of our membership, the Chamber believes that this is an unnecessary intrusion into the private sector and that every business should be free to set their own payment policies and procedures.

I stepped up to the table in the Senate Government Affairs Committee to oppose SB 264. This bill would allow all local governments (counties, cities, school districts, library boards, etc) to impose, increase, decrease, or repeal certain taxes without having to come to the State Legislature for authority to do so.

Nevada does not have a home rule system whereby localities are free to set their own taxing and spending policies. All taxes imposed by a local government have to have been authorized at some point by the legislature. Of course, several local government representatives testified in support of this concept.

While the Chamber believes that there should be discussions about giving local governments more autonomy over their affairs, rules, and regulations, I testified that tax rates and policies should probably have the extra check and balance that the legislature provides. I quoted our Agenda for Economic Vitality in Nevada, which states our support for the “concept of reasonable tax and fee caps to prevent government from unnecessary expansion.”

I also pointed out that there could be unintended consequences if this bill were to become law. We all know that Clark County is the economic engine of this state. Could there be a scenario whereby that county raised taxes or fees so much that businesses have no incentive to remain or locate there? Would that reduction in tax base then ripple through our state budget and, therefore, our local budget? These are things that must be considered.

Tomorrow at 1:30 will find me in Senate Taxation testifying in strong support of SB 201, the RTC-5 bill. Come down to Carson and support us!

More insurance mandates...

Signed in as opposed to two more insurance mandate bills today.

Both the Senate and Assembly Commerce and Labor Committees meet at 1:30 in the afternoon, and both have jurisdiction over insurance mandate bills.

In the Assembly, AB 268 was up. This would require all businesses who aren’t self-insured to cover new chemotherapy treatments, including pills that can be taken orally. The argument was made by the proponents of the bill that a pill regimen could potentially be much cheaper than chemo treatment that involves a doctor visit, IV drip, etc. The insurance industry, however, argued that evidence in Colorado showed that the drugs were actually the much more expensive option.

Senate Commerce and Labor took up SB 192, which would require insurance policies to cover name-brand drugs, but only charge generic prices to its policyholders. Apparently, the patient would not even have the option of using generic drugs. As name-brand drugs are not cheap, someone will have to make up that cost. That someone would be every small business owner who pays for health care and prescription coverage for their employees.

The Chamber remains opposed to all new health insurance mandates, as they tend to drive up the cost of every insurance policy.

I sat in this morning’s Joint Ways and Means/Finance Committee meeting on the merger between the Nevada Commission on Economic Development and the Nevada Commission on Tourism. The Governor has proposed to merge the two agencies in an effort to balance the budget.

Most of the committee members expressed skepticism of the idea, acknowledging that each of the agencies have very different missions. Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki stepped up to the table to oppose the idea.

The afternoon was spent in Assembly Taxation, where I was pleased to testify in support of two bills.

The first, AB 146, is sponsored by Majority Leader John Oceguera, with strong support from Secretary of State Ross Miller. It would create an online “business portal” operated by Miller’s office that would allow any business in the state to go to one place to take care of all of their license, permit, and tax issues. One website would allow you to take care of all the various state and local agencies that a business must deal with when setting up shop or renewing their operation.

The Majority leader included the Chamber and other business organizations in a working group to work out any issues with the bill prior to the hearing. I cannot speak highly enough of this process, whereby a legislator brings forward an idea and actually puts together a group of stakeholders to work on it. Mr. Oceguera is well-known for doing this and he is to be commended for it.

The second bill that I testified in favor of is AB 275, which has been proposed by Minority Leader Heidi Gansert. This bill would ensure that banks and other financial institutions pay the same Modified Business Tax rate that every other business pays. It would also eliminate the discriminatory branch excise tax imposed on those same institutions.

Currently, most of the business community pays 0.63% of their payroll to the state. Banks, however, must cough up 2% of their payroll AND pay a $7000 per branch excise tax on any branch above one per county.

The Chamber believes that this is horrible tax policy. No industry should be singled-out for extra taxation and we are opposed to any tax per business branch location. No business should be punished for being successful and offering better service to their customers.

Given the general fund hole that the Legislature is staring at, I do not have high hopes for the passage of any bill that would actually decrease taxes. That doesn’t mean we should give up on our principles.

I am beginning to feel the affects of being the Chamber’s one-man show down in Carson.

I wanted to be in three different hearings at the same time this afternoon, so I signed in at one, testified in the other, and missed the third. If it weren’t for my intern Tony back at the office, I would be more confused than normal!

Senate Government Affairs heard SB 189 today, which would allow an employee to file a complaint in court without first going to the State Labor Commissioner. The labor unions seem to be upset with current Labor Commissioner Mike Tanchek, a great public servant. Maybe because he doesn’t give them everything they want. This is the same group that wants sole authority to pick the Labor Commissioner. I signed in as opposing this bill, but I was not able to attend the hearing.

I went before the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee again today in opposition to AB 224, which would prohibit insurance companies from denying payments of amounts that are “not in dispute.” Representatives from the insurance industry testified that this language is ambiguous and consumers already have the right to sue insurers for denying payments and coverage. This bill also adds that an insurer is liable for any damages, “including, without limitation, costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.” I think we all know what can of worms that last phrase opens.

Tomorrow brings two bills that I will heartily support in Assembly Taxation: the creation of a statewide “business portal” website, and the repeal of the discriminatory modified business and branch taxes on banks.

Moral Obligation to Smoke and Drink

There was a very long hearing in Assembly Taxation this afternoon, and there were only two bills on the agenda!

I signed in opposing both, but only went to the table on one of them.

First up was AB 277, proposed by Assemblyman Bernie Anderson. This bill would raise the excise taxes considerably on liquor, including beer and wine. The money raised by this bill would go toward DNA testing and various alcohol and drug treatment programs.

The DNA issue arises from the tragic Brianna Denison case last year. It was during the course of that investigation that we all learned that the Washoe County crime lab had a large backlog of DNA samples and evidence that they had collected, but did not have the funding to expedite the process of analyzing all of the samples. AB 277 would provide money for that purpose.

AB 255, sponsored by Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, would raise the excise tax on cigarettes by about $1 per pack to fund medical services to pregnant women. I went to the table in opposition to this bill.

In fact, in Assemblywoman Leslie’s opening remarks, she quickly listed all of the reasons that some would use to oppose the bill, and she was dead on! She even stated that this method was horrible tax policy, but that she was tired of seeing these necessary services go unfunded year after year.

The Chamber opposes both of these bills because we believe that there should be a nexus between any tax and the purpose for that tax. We also believe that one specific industry should not shoulder the entire burden of a tax that benefits the entire population. You can find our positions on taxation on page 2 of our Agenda for Economic Vitality in Nevada.

In other words, if DNA testing and health care for pregnant women are determined to be important government services that the state needs to provide, then we should all pay for it, not just drinkers and smokers (and the stores that sell to them).

I also voice our concern that AB 255 would make cigarettes in Nevada more expensive than in many of our surrounding states, including California. We don’t even want to mention internet sales. By driving sales over the border or to the internet, we could actually hurt our local retailers and maybe even bring in less tax revenue on these products than we do currently.

Finally, these bills would seem to provide a perverse incentive for all of us to smoke and drink as much as we can in order to fund these important programs! You have a moral obligation!

WC-3, the anti-growth initiative that the Chamber opposed last November, reared its ugly head in the Assembly Government Affairs Committee this morning.

It is now known as AB 119, a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie. The initiative and the original version of the bill were written by PLAN, the “Progressive” Leadership Alliance of Nevada. (Is it considered “progress” if we move toward California and away from capitalism?) But I digress…

While PLAN would have you believe that AB 119 is only meant to implement the voters’ intent; that is not true. The voters supported amending the Truckee Meadows Regional Plan, not Nevada Revised Statutes. In fact, the process was already in place to hold public meetings to deal with this issue; meetings that were cancelled once this bill was introduced. AB 119 may actually be slowing down the process of implementing the voters’ intent.

While the amended bill is not nearly as harmful as the original text that you will find in the link above, it still has some undefined terms in the text, such as “region,” “development pattern,” and “sustainable water resources.” All of the local governments supported the change, but our position is that this bill is totally unnecessary.

Representatives from the Builders Association of Northern Nevada did a superb job in proving that our current Regional Plan already accomplishes what AB 119 is “supposed” to do. Click HERE for some facts about water and growth.

One point needs to be made very clear: No one can develop a piece of dirt until that developer has the water rights in hand to serve that project. We can never over-develop. If we were to somehow run out of newly available water, nothing else could be built.

In fact, we have become more efficient at using our resources at the same time that we build more homes and businesses. Brand-new homes and office buildings use much less water than older developments.

I testified against the bill and then was interviewed by KUNR after the hearing. My basic point was that we have had responsible, managed growth in Washoe County for years. Our economy must have a certain amount of growth to survive and thrive. Our members depend upon the income paid to the construction workers who shop in our stores and consume our services.

AB 119 does nothing to help our current economic conditions. In fact, it could very well make it worse.