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Archive for month: August, 2018

You are here: Home » Updates » Political Update – March 9, 2015 » 2018 » August
August 28, 2018
28 Aug 2018

Political Update – August 28, 2018





Attorney general group calls on Ford to release bar application

By Rimona Giwargis
Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 23, 2018

A month after state Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford’s criminal record came to light, a Republican group questioned whether the attorney general candidate disclosed his four arrests on two state bar applications.

The Republican Attorneys General Association political action committee on Thursday called on Ford, D-Las Vegas, to release his bar applications to gauge whether he lied about his past. Ford, a partner at Las Vegas law firm Eglet Prince, was admitted to the State Bar of Texas and the State Bar of Nevada.

Both applications specifically require the disclosure of past criminal convictions.

Ford’s campaign shared his Nevada bar application with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It shows he checked yes on the box asking if he had been arrested, cited or convicted of any criminal charges. The application requires an explanation, but the State Bar of Nevada told the campaign the attached explanations had been destroyed when Ford was admitted to the bar.

“Aaron Ford has not been honest about his past,” said Zack Roday, a spokesman for RAGA, which is backing Ford’s opponent, Wes Duncan.“Today, we are calling on Ford to release his bar applications for Texas and Nevada. Nevada voters deserve to know if he appropriately disclosed his four arrests, as required, on his bar application forms.”

Texas destroys its bar applications after five years. Ford was admitted in 2002.

READ MORE HERE

 

Keystone Corporation

Quote of the week

 


Quote:

“Aaron Ford has not been honest about his past. Today, we are calling on Ford to release his bar applications for Texas and Nevada. Nevada voters deserve to know if he appropriately disclosed his four arrests, as required, on his bar application forms.”

 

Zack Roday, a spokesman for RAGA, which is backing Ford’s opponent, Wes Duncan.
"Attorney general group calls on Ford to release bar application"
Las Vegas Review-Journal,
August 23, 2018

 

'Deregulation' label for question 3 proves divisive for Nevada

By Colton Lochhead
Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 27, 2018

For one side, it’s a battle cry. For the other, it’s the dirtiest of words.

When it comes to Question 3, the politically charged energy- choice measure on the ballot in Nevada, a political line has been drawn over a single term: deregulation.

The group opposing the measure has flooded airwaves across the state with ads claiming Question 3 will bring about “electricity deregulation,” higher energy rates and fewer price protections. Opponents have even invoked the Enron energy scandal that rocked California in 2001.

But the campaign backing the measure that would shift Nevada’s current regulated monopoly to an open, competitive market derides the use of the word, claiming it falsely describes what the Energy Choice Initiative would do if approved by voters for the second time this November.

“They’re trying to scare people,” said Jon Wellinghof, policy analyst for Yes on 3.

Opponents argue that the changes proposed in Question 3 have historically been referred to as deregulation.

 

READ MORE HERE

 

Keystone's Mission:

To recruit, support and advocate for candidates for public office who support private sector job creation, low taxation, a responsible regulatory environment, and effective delivery of essential state services.

Keystone's Mission:

• To focus on candidate support on state legislative races and the governor's office.
• To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.
• Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

P.O. Box 93596 | Las Vegas, NV 89193-3596

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August 21, 2018
21 Aug 2018

Political Update – August 21, 2018





Sisolak, Democrats want to raise your taxes

By Victor Joecks
Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 18, 2018

Democrats running for state office don’t like to talk about it, but they want to raise your taxes. That includes hiking property taxes.

Start with Democrat gubernatorial candidate Steve Sisolak.

“The property tax caps that were introduced and implemented over a decade ago are not working,” said Sisolak in February.

Those caps limit increases in residential property taxes to 3 percent a year, while commercial property taxes can jump by no more than 8 percent annually. Sisolak supports a technical change that would prevent a secondary calculation from keeping property tax growth below the caps.

That change, however, would bring in almost no additional revenue going forward. That’s why legislative Democrats have gone further. Last session, every Democratic lawmaker voted to increase property taxes via a constitutional amendment. The Legislature has to approve constitutional amendments twice before they go to a vote of the people.

This proposal would reset a property’s taxable value upon sale. Along with property tax caps, Nevada depreciates a property’s value based on age. Say a house is worth $250,000, but thanks to property tax caps and depreciation, the owner is paying taxes as if it were worth $150,000. Currently, the new owner inherits the property’s previous tax valuation. This plan would change that. The purchaser would pay taxes based on the home’s current value and as if it were a brand-new home.

READ MORE HERE

 

Keystone Corporation

Quote of the week

 


Quote:

"Education, state worker pay and Medicaid make up the vast majority of state general fund spending. Sisolak could increase general fund spending by 50 percent and not satisfy every government agency. What taxes does he want to raise to get this kind of money?

"He won’t say, but don’t let that fool you. To fund spending proposals like this, tax hikes are inevitable." – Victor Joecks,
"Sisolak, Democrats want to raise your taxes"
Las Vegas Review-Journal,
August 18, 2018

 

Report by Clark County teachers union proposes local tax

By Meghin Delaney
Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 19, 2018

A new report by the Clark County teachers union advocates that state lawmakers allow local school districts to raise extra money on their own to support education.

The 22-page paper was released last week by the Clark County Education Association, ahead of the 2019 legislative session. The paper recognizes the progress made in education funding over the last five years, but it says students can’t wait for an overhaul of the state funding system and that steps should be taken now to allow local funding opportunities.

“We believe that local funding should come with strong accountability measures to ensure new revenue is spent on proven intervention strategies to advance student achievement,” the paper says. “And we believe Nevada’s students can’t wait for a lengthy and expensive overhaul of the Nevada Plan.”

READ MORE HERE

 

Keystone's Mission:

To recruit, support and advocate for candidates for public office who support private sector job creation, low taxation, a responsible regulatory environment, and effective delivery of essential state services.

Keystone's Mission:

• To focus on candidate support on state legislative races and the governor's office.
• To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.
• Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

P.O. Box 93596 | Las Vegas, NV 89193-3596

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August 14, 2018
14 Aug 2018

Political Update – August 14, 2018





K-12 Education Spending and Report

Article
Ron Knecht & James Smack
August 7, 2018

Primary and secondary education (K-12) has been the second fastest growing category of Nevada state spending over the past decade, rising from $1.24-billion in fiscal year 2006 (FY06) to $2.22-billion in FY17.  It grew 33 percent faster than the incomes of Nevada families and businesses.

Only spending on health and human services grew faster.  Transportation spending also grew significantly faster than Nevadans’ incomes (although it is very volatile from year to year), and spending on regulation and higher education also grew slightly.  K-12 and these categories caused total state spending to grow 30 percent faster than Nevadans’ incomes.  All other significant categories of state spending declined relative to incomes.
Moreover, state K-12 spending on a per-student basis grew 42 percent, from $3,172 in FY06 to $4,498 in FY17.  Local spending contributed comparable amounts.  With student headcounts growing 26 percent, total state spending on K-12 grew 79 percent.  From another perspective, while incomes of Nevada families and businesses declined ten percent in real per person terms, K-12 spending grew 14 percent on that basis.
In 2016, the latest year for which national data are available, Nevada state and local K-12 spending ranked 42nd among the 50 states, an increase from 45th the previous two years. Spending by the District of Columbia was second only to that of New York.

However, while total state and local spending was rising, Nevada ranked only 45th in instructional spending, but 37th in so-called “support services”.  Thus, we spend too little in the classrooms and too much on administration and overhead.
Note that the full body of research on the correlation of student achievement and state spending shows mixed results.  There is no consistent, significant and statistically significant relationship between relative state spending and student achievement.
One piece of good news is that Nevada is eleventh in the evenness of its spending in the state’s 17 school districts (with evenness measured as the student-weighted coefficient of variation).  This fact gives the lie to continuing claims that the state’s school funding system is somehow antiquated and unfair to Clark County, requiring it to unduly subsidize rural districts.

So, what does all this spending buy us?
In 2007, Nevada eighth-graders ranked 44th nationally in their performance on the federally administered National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and mathematics evaluations.  By 2015, those rankings rose only to 43rd in reading and 41st in mathematics, despite the large increases in spending.

The failure of significantly increased Nevada spending on K-12 education to show improvements in results relative to other states is consistent with international comparisons.  Thus, among 33 countries of the Organization for International Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) the U.S. spent the fourth-highest levels per student but reaped only below-average performance (23rd) on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2015.  Japan, the highest-achieving nation, spends only 81.6 percent as much as the U.S. per child.
Our problem is that we keep throwing ever more money at teacher and administrator unions instead of making serious policy reforms.  These special interests and state and local school boards continually dodge the real issues by focusing on the non-school factors, such as household income, that are beyond the reach of education policy.
To improve the effectiveness of our education spending, we must allocate it to programs that have been shown to boost student achievement.  Public education must focus on the school-controlled variables that lead to improvements in student achievement in a cost-effective manner.

The academic literature shows no school-controlled variable has a greater influence than the quality of the teacher.  The best teachers can deliver effective instruction without requiring small class sizes.
So, our priority should be the recruitment and retention of highly talented teachers.  We should dispense with seniority-based and formulaic salary structures and pay teachers for the improvement their students show from the start of the year to the end.
Other initiatives discussed in this this year’s Controller’s Annual Report include increasing family choice in their students’ education.  Also, greater use of technology-assisted learning, which serves students and eases the workloads on teachers.  And recruiting teachers not just from education-school backgrounds.
We must focus on the needs of our children, not the demands of the provider bureaucracy.
Ron Knecht is Nevada Controller.  James Smack is Deputy Controller. 
 

Keystone Corporation

Quote of the week

 


Quote:

"Our problem is that we keep throwing ever more money at teacher and administrator unions instead of making serious policy reforms.  These special interests and state and local school boards continually dodge the real issues by focusing on the non-school factors, such as household income, that are beyond the reach of education policy." – Ron Knecht and James Smack

August 7, 2018

 

LVCVA’s Ralenkotter trying to rip taxpayers off one last time

By Victor Joecks
Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 11, 2018

Rossi Ralenkotter wants a diamond parachute for the platinum parachute of his golden parachute.

There’s a good chance that’s exactly what the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board gives its embattled CEO next Tuesday. Ralenkotter is stepping down Aug. 31 and wants a massive severance package. According to the meeting agenda, the board will vote on a separation agreement with Ralenkotter, a 2018 performance bonus and an 18-month consulting contract.

Any one of those items will likely cost taxpayers six figures, and Ralenkotter wants all three of them. That’s on top of his current $425,000-plus annual base salary. It would be shocking if that alone didn’t cost taxpayers more than $1 million. Then there’s his pension, which will pay him over $400,000 a year for the rest of his life if he selects the unmodified option.

This is utterly ridiculous for any public servant, but especially for one who’s leaving the agency he ran engulfed in scandal. One of Ralenkotter’s former lieutenants used LVCVA funds to buy $90,000 in Southwest gift cards between 2012 to 2017. An audit found he disguised the purchases by requesting inaccurate invoices. LVCVA employees spent $20,000 in cards for business travel and $20,000 for personal travel. Cards worth $50,000 remain unaccounted for.

Ralenkotter and his wife used gift cards worth more than $16,000 to pay for more than 50 trips. He repaid that money — after getting caught. He claims that he didn’t know the LVCVA paid for the cards. Either he’s lying or waste was so prevalent under Ralenkotter’s leadership that he didn’t think twice about not paying for dozens of flights.

Either way, the board has more reasons to fire Ralenkotter than shovel money at him. Metro is still investigating Ralenkotter for criminal wrongdoing. In a very odd move, Metro gave board chair Lawrence Weekly an update on that investigation Wednesday. “At this time, there is insufficient facts to support a criminal case against Mr. Ralenkotter,” wrote deputy chief Shawn Anderson.

An ongoing investigation doesn’t mean you’re home free — just ask President Donald Trump about Robert Mueller.

At the very least, board members shouldn’t use the lack of criminal charges as justification to give Ralenkotter more money. It’s not just the gift cards. As the Review-Journal’s investigative team has detailed, the LVCVA also spent lavishly on airfare, alcohol and iPads given away without recording a business purpose.

It’s hard not to wonder whether Ralenkotter has leverage over individual board members. There’s that big of a disconnect between public outrage over LVCVA waste and the board’s willingness to tolerate Ralenkotter, despite actions that would get you fired from McDonald’s. North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee deserves immense credit for being an outspoken exception to this rule. Lee has called on Ralenkotter to resign immediately and without an exit payment.

Assemblymen Keith Pickard, R-Henderson, and Ozzie Fumo, D-Las Vegas, have both spoken out against Ralenkotter’s payout. More elected officials should do the same. 

READ MORE HERE

 

Keystone's Mission:

To recruit, support and advocate for candidates for public office who support private sector job creation, low taxation, a responsible regulatory environment, and effective delivery of essential state services.

Keystone's Mission:

• To focus on candidate support on state legislative races and the governor's office.
• To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.
• Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

P.O. Box 93596 | Las Vegas, NV 89193-3596

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August 13, 2018
13 Aug 2018

Political Update – August 7,2018





Oscar Goodman and Bob Cashell Endorse Laxalt

Press Release
Contact: Parker Briden
August 1, 2018

Today, Adam Laxalt’s campaign for governor announced the endorsement of Oscar Goodman, the former mayor of Las Vegas and Bob Cashell, the former mayor of Reno. Goodman served as mayor of Las Vegas from 1999 to 2011. Cashell served as mayor of Reno from 2002 to 2014 and as Lieutenant Governor from 1979 to 1982.
 
“I’m grateful for these endorsements,” said Adam Laxalt. “I’ve always worked with people in both parties to get things done, and as Governor I’ll always put the people over politics.  These are great leaders and it’s an honor to have their support.”
 
“Adam Laxalt protects people. That’s his driving force. He puts politics to the side and works with leaders in both parties to get results. That’s the kind of leader we need to help our state go forward. As Governor, I know he’ll protect Nevada’s jobs, protect Nevada’s schools, and with his law enforcement relationships developed as Attorney General he will make Nevada a safer place to live, work, and play,” said Oscar Goodman
 
“Adam Laxalt will be a governor for our entire state,” said Bob Cashell. “I know that Adam has a heart for every Nevadan, regardless of their zip code or station in life. His opponent, Steve Sisolak, has always pitted parts of Nevada against each other. Now Sisolak wants the people he’s ignored and doesn’t understand to give him the keys to the Capitol. That’s not what a true leader does.”

 

 

 

Keystone Corporation

Quote of the week

 


Quote:

"Adam Laxalt protects people. That's his driving force.  He puts politics to the side and works with leaders in both parties to get results. That's the kind of leader we need to help our state go forward." – Oscar Goodman on Adam Laxalt

August 1, 2018

 

Taxpayer-funded trip included a jaunt to Disney World

By Victor Joecks
Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 2, 2018

The Clark County School District sent Deanna Wright to an anti-bullying conference in Orlando. She went to Walt Disney World instead of attending the end of the conference.

Wright is the president of the School Board. Last year, taxpayers paid for her trip to the 2017 National Conference on Bullying. The conference opened on March 1 and ended at 11 a.m. on March 3.

On March 3, at 9:53 a.m. — while the conference was ongoing — she took an Uber from her hotel to a Disney World parking lot. Late that evening, she took another Uber from Disney World back to her hotel. That’s according to travel documents obtained by a public records request.

If you’re using taxpayer money to go to a conference, you should be at the conference, not taking off to an amusement park.

 Wright could have returned to Vegas the day the conference ended. Southwest had a flight from Orlando to Las Vegas that departed at 4:25 p.m. on March 3. Instead, she flew out on the afternoon of March 4. Wright’s excursion meant taxpayers paid for an extra night in her hotel, costing $169. Leaving a day late also allowed Wright to collect an extra $59 of per diem.

READ MORE HERE

 

Keystone's Mission:

To recruit, support and advocate for candidates for public office who support private sector job creation, low taxation, a responsible regulatory environment, and effective delivery of essential state services.

Keystone's Mission:

• To focus on candidate support on state legislative races and the governor's office.
• To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.
• Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

P.O. Box 93596 | Las Vegas, NV 89193-3596

To ensure that you continue receiving email updates,

please add Info@KeystoneNevada.com to your address book or safe list.
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To focus on candidate support in state legislative races and the governor’s office.

To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.

Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

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