The City of Reno, which earlier this year was caught failing to report its lobbying expenses as required by state law (see Louis Dezseran’s August 14 post, below), is hiring new lobbyists for the 2009 Nevada Legislature.

According to a Sept 25 Reno Gazette-Journal report, Alexis Miller, a former lobbyist for the Nevada Mining Association, has been hired to lobby for the City of Reno at a salary of $85,512 annually. She will also work with Lesley Pittman, former lobbyist for Stations Casinos, whose lobbying company, Sierra Strategies, has also been retained by the City of Reno, says the G-J story. Pittman’s company was hired at a rate of “$72,000 for the 2009 session,” according to the article. Assuming the session will only last four months — the term set by the Nevada Constitution for the regular biennial legislatures — the annual rate of pay for Sierra Strategies would calc out at $216,000.

Miller, five years as a mining association lobbyist, will replace Nicholas Anthony, who lobbied for the City of Reno during the 2007 session. Anthony is a former Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) staffer who, according to the story, is returning to a position with the LCB.

Stopping government waste will greatly benefit taxpayers

The Nevada Policy Research Institute is making this site available at a time of intense fiscal problems for the state. Nevada’s spending has ballooned to more than $11.5 billion, the state’s total public debt now exceeds $4.5 billion, and it will cost more than $663 million to pay that debt. The taxpayers who will have to pay this debt are facing serious economic hardships: Nevada’s poverty rate as of last year, according to U.S. Census estimates, is 9.6 percent, the state’s unemployment rate has risen higher than the national average to 5.7 percent, and its foreclosure rate is four times the national average, at one in every 118 households.

The economic problems facing Nevada taxpayers will worsen with diminishing business activity. Flights into Nevada’s largest airports have dropped nearly 20 percent for some carriers (which is especially damaging for a state economy that depends heavily on tourism and gaming), gaming activity has dropped 3.9 percent (the first drop in gaming activity since the last recession in 2002), hotel occupancy has dropped 0.9 percent, and Las Vegas’ office vacancy rate had the highest jump (3.2 percent) in the 79 markets tracked by rising to 17.3 percent. Consumers are constrained by high prices for gas and food as well as home values that have decreased 23 percent since April 2007 and currently are falling by as much as 3 percent per month. Economic problems for Nevadans compound into even greater fiscal problems for state and local budgets, as decreased wages and spending lead to decreased tax revenue. Further, Nevada’s taxpayers should not expect financial rescue from Washington, D.C., given its fiscal issues, which worsen the problem given that 24 percent, or the largest plurality of the state’s revenue, comes from the federal government.

Nevada looks even less impressive economically and socially when ranked against other states: the state is 48th in cumulative growth in per capita personal income over the last decade (with 50th being the worst), 39th in sales tax burden, 50th in ensuring child safety, 43rd in giving families enhanced ability to provide for children, and 42nd in debt service as a percent of overall tax revenue. To compare Nevada to its neighbors, New Mexico is 10th in per capita personal income and 10th in debt service as a percent of overall tax revenue, California is 15th in per capita personal income, Idaho is 3rd in debt service as a percent of overall tax revenue, Colorado is 17th in personal income and Oregon is 1st in terms of sales tax burden.

To put all of this in context, every dollar that the government wastes is a dollar that taxpayers cannot use for their own pressing problems. Thus, this site is intended to help taxpayers find out where their money is being wasted. The employee salary portion of the site will allow taxpayers to view the mismanagement of government employee overtime and the sometimes overly generous benefits government employees receive at great taxpayer expense. The government contract portion of the site will help taxpayers investigate the millions spent on superfluous items such as hacky sacks and stuffed frogs. The lobbying portion of the site will show taxpayers how much of their money is given to high powered special interests each year, including the thousands spent on gifts and entertainment related to lobbying.

At a time when state legislators are fighting over whether and how to cut spending in one important area or another, this site will assist citizens to research for themselves where they think cuts should be made, and subsequently to contact their elected legislators with their ideas. Please browse the data, use the searchable features, and contact us if you have any questions or comments.

Public Employee Salaries and Benefits are Draining Government Coffers

A few weeks ago, the Nevada Policy Research Institute released a story on the high and growing salaries and benefits given to public employees in Nevada’s largest cities and counties. Further research has found a similar story in the smaller counties in Nevada as well.

While it was previously reported that hundreds of public employees in Nevada’s largest cities receive annual compensation packages in excess of $100,000 per year and that dozens receive compensation above $200,000 per year, it was recently discovered that in Nevada’s smaller counties, many public employees receive compensation packages well above the average pay for private sector workers in similar positions. Douglas County had 163 employees with compensation (denoting the cost of salary, overtime, and benefits) above $100,000 and one above $200,000, Lyon County had 39 employees costing taxpayers more than $100,000 per year, 31 of Churchill County’s 236 employees received compensation above $100,000, and Lander County had 7 employees who cost taxpayers more than $100,000.

Speaking of overtime, Nevada’s state, county, and city governments spend millions each year in that category, with some local governments allocating more than 10 percent of their salary budget to overtime pay. NPRI already reported that Clark County spent $32.5 million on employee overtime, the State of Nevada spent more than $29.1 million, the City of Las Vegas more than $21.3 million (employee salaries now make up close to three quarters of the city’s overall spending), Washoe County spent more than $2 million, and Carson City spent over $1.6 million. Further open records requests to Nevada’s smaller counties found that Douglas County spent $1.4 million on employee overtime, Lyon County spent $1.08 million, Humboldt County paid out $361,860, Churchill County spent $296,736, Eureka County spent $203,391, Lander County spent $125,992, and even Esmeralda County with a population of just a few hundred people spent $16,000.

It should be recognized that numbers are only available from the counties that provided data through open records requests. Some counties in Nevada agreed to provide such information for fees ranging from a few hundred to $3,000–clearly more money than it would cost a county employee to gather and disseminate such information. Even worse, some counties declined to provide such information at all. For example, officials at Storey County repeatedly stated that they never received our open records requests, then stated that our open records requests had already been fulfilled, and upon being asked to re-send them, these officials once again stated that they never received the open records requests in the first place and insisted that I contact that county controller. Hugh Gallagher, the controller for Storey County, refused to provide any information to your humble author, and would not even say why he won’t provide such information. Other counties asserted that their accounting systems are not detailed enough to determine the amount of money paid in benefits or overtime per employee, and one city even asserted that it does not know how much it pays its public employees each year.

It should also be recognized that many of the open records requests were often only fulfilled for public employees, but some of the government entities examined also pay a significant amount of money to consultants. Because these consultants are not regular employees, it is possible that the money paid to them comes out of budgets that are not very visible to taxpayers. For example, in the news recently was Lacy Thomas, former CEO of University Medical Center, who allocated hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for no-work contracts given to his friends. Problematically, consulting contracts are common in government, with some consultants being paid several hundred dollars per hour.

Not only are public employee salaries draining governments in Nevada, but the benefits packages given to public employees are expensive as well. A recent study found that the state spent $14.3 million on health care benefits for state retirees just four years ago, but $36.6 million will be spent for these benefits this year. Further, it will cost the state $3.3 billion to cover this benefit over the next 30 years. This is in part because Nevada’s state retirement system allows many employees to retire early and draw full benefits as well as a significant portion of their salaries for the duration of their lives. Problematically, Nevada’s Public Employees’ Retirement System (NVPERS) now has an unfunded liability of 16.8 percent ($4.8 billion) and growing, while the police officer and firefighter retirement system has an unfunded liability of 26 percent ($1.7 billion) and growing. In comparison, the private sector has been cutting health care programs and allowing employees to buy their own medical insurance or utilize the Medicare system. While state retirees who do not qualify for Medicare should not be cut off, reform is necessary before entitlements bankrupt the state.

General reforms could include mandating more transparency in public employee salary and benefit data, limiting the pay for consultants, and implementing more efficient processes so that less overtime is necessary. In terms of benefits, reforms could include capping the benefits paid out, requiring that retirees pay a small monthly fee to continue their benefits, increasing the number of years for full retirement eligibility or indexing retirement to a higher age, discontinuing the practice of letting employees buy additional years of retirement, ending the practice of allowing volunteers to retire with benefits, mandating that a portion of overtime pay be included in retirement contributions, mandating a larger employee contribution to the NPERS system, increasing vesting policies such that a half-time employee is not vested for retirement after just 2.5 years of actual work over a five year period, removing some of the more stringent work requirements prohibiting PERS members from continuing to work after retirement, and hiring more contractors (at reasonable salary levels) who do not qualify for pensions in contrast to civil servants.

In conclusion, it should be stressed that many public employees do an excellent job and all deserve competitive salary and benefits packages, but the compensation given to some is excessive. Reform is necessary before public employee salaries and benefits bankrupt the state.

A Few Simple Changes Could Save Taxpayers Millions

We’ve all heard the advice: save a dollar a day and invest it in an interest bearing account, and over the course of your lifetime you’ll have more than $1 million saved up.

There are many ways to save a dollar a day—cut a coupon before going to the grocery store, set the idle on your car lower to save gas, skip that trip to Starbucks and make coffee at home, etc.

In the same way that a person can save a small amount of money each day and have it add up to a fortune over time, the government can easily find ways to save small amounts of money daily as well.

One simple way to save taxpayer dollars would be to limit the petty cash given to politicians and bureaucrats. While state officials get just $500 in petty cash, Reno city council members get $10,000 every year, Clark County commissioners get $15,000, and Las Vegas City Council Members top the charts at $35,000. Thousands of taxpayer dollars have been spent through these slush funds on items such as beach balls or pencils with council members’ names on them, and even a performance by the 1970s band Super Freak. Curtailing these slush funds could save the taxpayers millions over the coming years.

Another simple way to save money for taxpayers would be to cut some of the spending wasted on Homeland Security. While combating terrorism should be a priority, DHS is being used for pork that must be curtailed. For instance, Esmeralda County received a Homeland Security grant of $30,938, but that county has no political, economic, natural, or strategic targets for terrorists to attack. And according to the Census it has the second lowest population density of any county in the contiguous United States — at a rounded zero people per square mile.

While this is a federal issue and thus is beyond NPRI’s normal subject matter, taxpayers should be aware of the waste in this department so that they may contact their congressional members (who probably demanded the Esmeralda DHS dollars) and complain.

Another wasteful practice occurs when the government taxes hardworking citizens only to donate their money to favored charities. Washoe County alone spent $40,200 on unnamed donations last year (and the fact that the donations were unnamed is problematic in itself), Clark County officials sent $24,575 to subsidize fundraisers for several politically favored nonprofits, and the City of Reno donated a total of $21,500 to frivolous causes such as restoring antique fire trucks for display.

While private donations to charity are admirable, taxpayers should be able to decide which charities they would like to support and donate their money accordingly rather than having politicians decide for them.

Yet another area of waste, contractors routinely get additional money out of the state, given the latter’s long-standing policy allowing 10 percent margins of increase on contracts. Thus, vendors can go to the state and ask for an extra 10 percent to be added to general expenses. Generally, such contracts will be increased with no questions asked.

That kind of 10 percent margin, however, is rather steep, and any such requests for additional money on an already-signed contract should be subjected to more review and public notice. Such requests should no longer be essentially granted no-questions-asked.

The State of Nevada is facing a budget shortfall that some estimate will be close to one billion dollars, and the state already has several billion more in public debt. Even worse, the cost to taxpayers to pay that debt, it is estimated, will be hundreds of millions more.

The changes recommended above will not save taxpayers huge sums of money immediately, but they require very little effort. And the money saved will add up to a fortune in the long-term.

Finally, a clear and well-implemented transparency policy coming out of the Nevada Legislature next year can produce real progress on many of these waste issues, and with little political pain.

Politicians, bureaucrats and vendors will be much less likely to waste taxpayer money if they know that taxpayers will see this on an easily accessed, user-friendly state website or on TransparentNevada.com.

It’s simple: If you’re a politician, a government official, or a vendor, and everyone’s going to see you naked, you’ll want to look like Michelangelo’s David, not like Jabba the Hut.

Stopping government waste will greatly benefit taxpayers

Recently, we at NPRI reported that millions of taxpayer dollars are spent by local governments in Nevada each year to lobby the state government. One commentary touched on the millions spent lobbying the federal government, but now additional research has revealed that millions more in Nevada taxpayer dollars are going to Washington, D.C., each year, lining the pockets of already wealthy lobbyists.

Just how much money sloshes around the world of special interests? A total is difficult to estimate given the large sums that are likely exchanged under the table, but the wife of one lobbyist recently revealed in an interview that her house is so large that she can’t remember the number of rooms, but she does have one room devoted to wrapping gifts in sheets of money that she purchases from the US Bureau of Engraving.

Needless to say, these special interests have enough money to buy and sell many politicians. By now, we’ve all heard the story of Congressman Duke Cunningham, who was bribed with a Rolls Royce, a yacht, a Louis-Phillipe commode, three antique nightstands, a leaded glass cabinet, a washstand, a buffet, four armoires, free auto repair services when his Rolls broke down, and numerous trips on private jets. In exchange, Cunningham directed Defense Department contracts to these people at great expense to the taxpayers.

Few citizens know that lobbying is not just a matter of wealthy individuals and firms spending millions to influence the government. Actually, varied levels of government hire lobbyists to influence other levels of government. While NPRI recently reported that local and state governments in Nevada spent $4.9 million to lobby the federal government, additional research has uncovered that no less than $25.4 million in taxpayer dollars has been spent by governments in Nevada to lobby the federal government since 1999. This is in addition to the $10.8 million, at least, spent by local governments to lobby the state government.

The biggest spender on lobbying was the Nevada Department of Transportation, which has spent close to $2 million since 1999. The City of Las Vegas, the City of Henderson, and the University of Nevada at Reno also each spent close to that amount over the same time period. The City of Mesquite, the City of North Las Vegas, UNLV, the State of Nevada, and the Las Vegas Valley Water District all spent more than $1 million lobbying in the last decade, and some very small government entities such as Nye County spent as much as close to half a million taxpayer dollars on lobbying.

In terms of the big winners on the lobbyist end, a Marcus G. Faust (what a name) made or shared $6,573,595 from Nevada taxpayers to lobby the federal government since 1999. The Carmen Group made $2.5 million off of Nevada’s taxpayers, the Furman Group made $1.9 million, Ball Janik made the better part of $1.7 million, and Cassidy and Associates made $1.4 million. It is also worth noting that these numbers are generally based on government entities’ self-reporting. However telephone conversations with several government entities in Nevada established that many of them do not keep records on the amounts they spend in this category. Thus, just how many millions more may have been squandered is unknown.

While these lobbyists make millions, the taxpayers get little or nothing in return. As mentioned in a previous commentary, the State of Nevada ranks 49th in receipt of federal aid to state and local governments per capita and 50th in federal spending per capita. Further, for each dollar that Nevadans send to Washington, D.C., the federal government returns only 73 cents. Needless to say, the state could spend no taxpayer money on lobbying whatsoever and still rank 50th in federal spending per capita, but then our lobbyist friends in D.C. might have fewer sheets of our money for wrapping their gifts.

Serious reform is needed in the area of intergovernmental lobbying. All levels of government should be required to record and report the amount of money that they spend on lobbying. The state should also develop some method of punishing the government entities and agencies that do not report their lobbying. The current penalty is just $10 per day not reported, which — given the millions of dollars being spent — is a pittance. It’s no wonder that a state analyst, speaking with NPRI, called the lack of compliance- accountability mechanisms “very frustrating.”

Much more detail should be provided on how lobbying money was spent. Current lobbying reporting forms have entries for “gifts and entertainment,” but, given the thousands being spent in these categories, taxpayers deserve to know exactly what gifts and entertainment their money is being used for.

At a time when taxpayers are feeling the pinch of a slowing economy, and state government is facing budget cuts across the board, state lawmakers will be irresponsible if they fail to impose greater discipline over frivolous expenses.

By the numbers, intergovernmental lobbying may well be the most frivolous expense occurring.

Lots of taxpayer money is being spent but not reported.

A few weeks ago, the Nevada Policy Research Institute reported on the millions of taxpayer dollars spent by state and local governments to hire lobbyists to lobby other levels of government.

Now, further open records requests and audits have revealed that some local governments destroy their intergovernmental lobbying records so quickly that no public account remains to reveal exactly how taxpayer dollars are spent each year.

While responses to open records requests show that local governments reported spending just over $3 million to lobby the state government, a review of state audits revealed that an estimated additional $1.1 million, at least, was spent by local governments but not reported as required by law.

Either intentionally or inadvertently, therefore, local governments last year concealed an estimated one-third of their intergovernmental lobbying expenses from voters and taxpayers. Moreover, given this pattern of misrepresentation, local government’s actual spending on such lobbying since 1999 may well be significantly higher than the $10.6 million they have officially reported. Possible supporting evidence comes from some relatively small government entities – such as two different water districts that each estimated spending some six figures on lobbying in 2007 alone.

Under Nevada law, some government lobbying expenses need not be reported. NRS 394.59803 exempts any such expenses under $6,000 per Legislative Session. However, only $17,731 of the estimated $1.1 million that went unreported would fall under this exemption.

In one important instance, the City of Reno did not report any spending on intergovernmental lobbying last year until NPRI reviewed their financial statements and asked a state budget analyst about the discrepancy. That analyst in turn contacted the city and obtained a report of $280,011.57. This report, turned in several months late, may not have been made had it not been for NPRI’s inquiries.

That such a sum of taxpayer money was spent and not reported to the state suggests a strong likelihood that additional taxpayer money is being spent under the table elsewhere as well. Moreover, not only is much of the spending on lobbying hidden, some of it will never be found because local governments are rapidly destroying their financial records.

For example, state responses to open records requests show that the City of Mesquite spent $51,000 on gifts and entertainment related to lobbying between 1999 and 2001. When NPRI requested details from the city on the actual gifts and entertainment purchased, the city’s answer was that all records of those expenditures had been destroyed – without being backed up via any computer system.

It does not necessarily follow that local officials in Nevada intentionally concealed significant expenditures in order to dupe taxpayers. In some cases, it appears bureaucrats may simply be confused. A content analysis of intergovernmental communications revealed a candid e-mail from one bureaucrat, stating, “With two years in between reports, it’s hard to remember who does what.”

Of course, administrative officials not knowing who does what is clear evidence of a broken system. The need for reform is obvious.

While citizen lobbying serves an important and constitutionally protected purpose in the American political system, the amount of money lobbyists spend and the type and value of the gifts that they give clearly needs to be made public. This is especially true when government officials are using taxpayer funds to lobby other government officials and agencies.

Nevada law should be amended to require that a specific official in each local government entity is personally accountable for reporting this spending to the state and the public. Government bureaucrats – and voters – need to know “who does what.” Further, detailed records must be preserved for the public. If the records are on paper, they should be digitally scanned and saved on a server.

As Nevada’s economy continues to struggle, it is increasingly apparent that fiscal transparency reforms should be a high priority for the state. Intergovernmental lobbying and proper records retention are two areas of reform where greater transparency and accountability will end up saving taxpayer dollars.

They all add up to a very high cost to taxpayers.

While public employees deserve a quality compensation package, many of them receive excessive pay and perks at taxpayer expense.

Last year, 162 Washoe County employees each cost taxpayers more than $100,000, while 61 Clark County employees each cost taxpayers more than $200,000. One Clark County official made $266,562 – almost double the salary set by law for Nevada’s governor.

One of the reasons public employees cost the taxpayers so dearly is the plentiful overtime doled out, with some local governments allocating more than 10 percent of their salary budgets to OT. An open records request found that the City of Las Vegas paid more than $21 million for overtime, the State of Nevada spent over $29 million, and Clark County paid the most at more than $32 million in one year. One Vegas city employee made more in overtime than he made in base salary. Multiple Clark County fire officials made close to $100,000 each in overtime. Nevada has hundreds of well-trained volunteer firefighters, so why are taxpayers compelled to pay regular employees millions in overtime to do work that a volunteer would like to do for free?

Further, state and county audits found that some public employees received overtime pay despite it not being approved in advance by supervisors, that several law enforcement personnel received more overtime than their contracts allow, that some law enforcement officials were paid for overtime they did not work, and that some Laughlin police officers received both regular salary and overtime pay for the same shifts. (Upon identification by auditors, these oversights were corrected. But because audits are often only partial, similar oversights could have occurred unnoticed).

Excessive overtime pay isn’t the only perk of public service. An open records request found that some Clark County employees can qualify for up to $2,275 per year as a clothing allowance and up to $7,200 per year as a car allowance. Public employees in some counties receive extra holiday pay for working on such faux holidays as “Family Day,” “Nevada Day” or the employee’s birthday. Some public employees enjoy inappropriate round-the-clock use of taxpayer-funded vehicles. While emergency employees may certainly need county vehicles for after-hour emergencies, non-emergency employees, such as the county assessor, are allowed round-the-clock use of government vehicles unnecessarily. Finally, some county employees taking college classes are fronted the entire cost of tuition and books, then are paid time-and-a-half for hours spent in class. Very few private-sector employees get comparable benefits.

It is commonly argued that police and firefighters have jobs that are more dangerous than the average citizen’s, so higher pay is appropriate. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, law enforcement and firefighting actually do not rank in the country’s top ten most dangerous occupations. Lower-paying occupations in construction, mining, fishing, roofing, farming, trash collection, manufacturing and the military see more deaths and injuries on the job than do either law enforcement or fire fighting. It should also be noted that private-sector jobs in related fields pay much less: Private-sector security guards and fire employees generally earn close to minimum wage.

Not only do Nevada public employees receive disproportionately generous compensation packages, the momentum to increase their pay persists regardless of whether or not they even want raises. Last year, Las Vegas City Manager Doug Selby reportedly asked that his pay remain at $196,252 in the interest of fiscal responsibility, but the mayor and City Council insisted he receive a bonus and pay increase to $214,307. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the same City Council voted itself a 48 percent pay raise, effective in 2009 or 2011, depending on council ward.

Such behavior by elected leaders has created our current situation, where health care and pension costs for public employees could bankrupt Nevada governments in coming years. In order to relieve current and future pressure on taxpayers, reforms must be implemented to curb government spending. Public employees should not receive overtime pay unless their overtime work is approved in advance by supervisors. Employees should not be able to work more overtime than allowed by their contracts. Also, supervisors should limit overtime approved, especially when quality volunteers can provide support for free. No public officials should be able to vote themselves a raise – decisions on pay raises for politicians should have to be approved by the voters. Finally, all extra perks given to public employees should be reassessed for their necessity.

At a time when private-sector workers in Nevada face economic difficulty, state unemployment is rising to 6.2 percent, business activity is declining, tourism numbers are falling, and foreclosure rates are at historic highs, Nevada governments must find every way possible to curb their spending and leave more money in the hands of taxpayers. Raising some public employee salaries by as much as 48 percent and handing out as much as $100,000 in overtime pay to given public employees is no way to show respect for Nevada taxpayers.

The costs pile up as taxpayers remain in the dark.

Many people think of outsourcing as a way to save on expenses by having help from outside firms that can do specialized jobs for less. When it comes to government in Nevada, however, outsourcing too often appears a way for the politically connected to pull in taxpayer dollars.

Open records requests examined by the Nevada Policy Research Institute revealed that from July 1, 2006 until December 31, 2007, the state purchasing department alone spent almost $40 million on 107 contracts. (The state had 130 contracts, but said data on the other 23 would not be provided, as it was not available in any standard report.) Large spending items included over $12.5 million on vehicles, and over $8.8 million in the area of information technology.

At the county level, tiny Mineral County spent $16 million on contracts over about two years, with $600 allocated to a rock band, $990 for wrist bands, and a total of $1,750 for a magician. Humboldt County exceeded $10 million in just one year. Construction and insurance were the largest expenditures.

In Washoe County, contracts call for more than a quarter of a million dollars to be paid per month to clean county buildings, raising the question of whether existing staff could clean at least some of those buildings at no additional cost. Clark County staff reported spending over $20 million on contracts, including such odd entries as: tens of thousands of dollars total for performers like pirate impersonators and comedic acrobats, $200 for a petting zoo, $1,225 for a Santa and Mrs. Claus and three elf characters for two hours, $9,675 for a lawnmower available elsewhere for $7,485, and $200 for four pigs.

Even some contracts that were for important items involved overspending or were not subject to proper bidding processes. For instance, the Las Vegas Housing Authority hired a consulting firm for $50,000 without free and open competition, and then increased that contract, without board approval, to $200,000. In another example, the state paid $7 million to an architect to design an intersection. When those plans were deemed defective, fixes cost another $9.4 million for the contractor and an additional $211,149 for another consultant.

And by now, we’ve all heard about the problems facing University Medical Center, whose former CEO, Lacy Thomas, is charged with paying $10 million to his friend’s consulting firm for a no-work contract. UMC also paid millions to Dr. Dipak Desai, whose medical offices allegedly caused the country’s largest mass infection of Hepatitis C through the reuse of syringes and single-dose vials of medicine on multiple patients.

These contracting problems are evidence of a system that badly needs reform. Under current state law, Nevada has a threshold for the sealed bid process that is much higher, at $50,000, than the median threshold found across the fifty states ($7,500) or the mean threshold across the states ($15,438.80). Indeed, given that some states have bidding thresholds as low as $1,000, there is no reason why Nevada’s threshold should be fifty times higher.

However, the laxity does not end with state sealed-bid thresholds. Audits have found expenditures above $50,000 not reported in several cases. Worse, Clark County until recently allowed some bureaucrats to personally approve any spending under $500,000 with no formal oversight – far too much spending power for any single government official to possess, and one of the causes of the county’s UMC mess.

Other needed reforms would include legislation that prohibits contractors from backing out of contracts in order to simply re-bid to provide taxpayers the same services at higher costs. This happened in Dr. Desai’s case, where his clinic backed out of a five-figure contract with UMC to then perform the same services for seven figures.

Additionally, no one should be able to be paid as a government employee while receiving another check as a government contractor for providing similar services at the same time. A case in point: The Clark County Water Reclamation District first hired a vendor at $34,000 per month and then hired that vendor’s lab manager as a regular employee – allowing the latter to be paid as both an employee and a contractor.

Greater transparency in government spending – allowing all government contracts to be subject to easy public view – is a vital need in Nevada. Comprehensive transparency has the power to effectively deter wasteful spending and allow taxpayers a fuller understanding of how their money is being used.

Transparency should be a higher priority in the Silver State.

Subpar accounting practices in Nevada government are making it difficult for taxpayers to learn how hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are spent.

Months of inquiries by the Nevada Policy Research Institute found that off-budget spending practices are chronic at both the state and local government levels in Nevada.

In likely the largest area of covert government spending, while more than one hundred million dollars are paid each year via outsourced contracts, record-keeping on the spending is often haphazard and confused, when done at all.

In the six months from July to December of 2007, open records requests show that the state purchasing office spent about $40 million on 107 contracts. Information – firms hired, amounts spent per firm, or even total amounts spent – on 23 other contracts would not be made available, because officials declined to provide any data in those cases, pointing out that “state agencies are not required … to provide information that is not compiled or tracked as a standard report.”

Even for known contracts reported, however, records are often vague or confusing. Vague, as in “Partners in Business” (which received $657,748) with no accompanying explanation of the budget items. Confusing, as in one line item showing that the state paid a private firm $56,900 over 11 years for a total of 822 units of vitamin D – with no information available on the size of these units. Were they 822 single capsules of vitamin D, 822 boxes of vitamin D, 822 boxes of bottles of vitamin D or, perhaps, some combination of these?

A second area of spending not apparent in state budgets is the money that Nevada lawmakers allocate to nonprofit organizations with scant reporting requirements. According to Paul Townsend, head of the Legislative Counsel Bureau’s Audit Division, nonprofits that receive one-time appropriations from the Legislature may be required by the appropriating statute to have an audit, but the audits are otherwise not mandatory.

Significantly, state and local governments do not produce any comprehensive lists of the nonprofits they fund or the total sums given them. In this context, it is relevant that, though some members of the state Legislature have tried for approximately two decades to tighten auditing requirements in the executive branch, their bills have been regularly rejected by the full Legislature.

The third important channel through which Nevada’s state and local governments inhibit public knowledge of spending is through off-the-record transactions. Frequently in the news last year was the Nevada College Savings Program, which had sidestepped legislative oversight by routing some $6 million in fees paid by program participants to private firms managing the program – rather than through the state accounts that lawmakers specified when authorizing the program. Millions were paid to program advisors, a law firm, and a marketing firm, all of which received several times the amount of money allocated to them by the state Legislature.

Although Nevada ethics commissioners subsequently found no violations by former State Treasurer (now Lieutenant Governor) Brian Krolicki, legislative auditors found numerous grievous accounting practices by the college savings program, and the Legislature’s audit committee recommended numerous changes in Treasury practices. And because the private program manager held millions of dollars earned through fees in non-interest rather than interest-bearing accounts, auditors estimate that the state lost $38,000 in otherwise easy income.

To put these problems in context, every dollar that the government wastes is a dollar that a taxpayer cannot use for her or his pressing problems.

In today’s difficult economic times, with Nevada’s unemployment rate over the national average, with home values falling and food and gas prices soaring, transparency and financial accountability reforms should be a higher priority for the State of Nevada.

Millions of taxpayer dollars go undocumented.

State and local governments in Nevada spend millions each year lobbying other levels of the government, and taxpayers get little if anything in return.

Open records requests and federal database research conducted by the Nevada Policy Research Institute have found that a significant amount of taxpayer money is spent on questionable lobbying activities.

Moreover, the total sums lost due to intergovernmental lobbying are higher than taxpayers will ever know. That’s because Nevada law (NRS 394.59803) says a state or local government organization only has to report lobbying expenses that exceed $6,000 per legislative session. Thus, a given governmental organization could spend $5,999 on almost any lobbying activity and never have to report that lobbying to the state. Similarly, how much the state and local governments spend lobbying the federal government is unknown, since federal research databases generally set their thresholds at $10,000.

Notwithstanding those problems, numbers available to NPRI through open records requests show that the local governments in Nevada spent almost $7.9 million on lobbying last year. The county, cities and districts in Clark County spent the most at $2,333,998 (68 percent of the total amount reported), while government organizations in Washoe County reported spending $837,666 (24 percent of the total). Even Nye County, with an estimated population of just 40,000, spent $30,000 lobbying other levels of government.

The state and local lobbying expenditure reports are vague, but they do broadly categorize spending enough to allow taxpayers some insight into how their money was spent. Since 1999, for example, the cities and counties have spent $36,150 on gifts and entertainment related to lobbying, not including the spending on hotel stays or restaurant meals totaling $1,106,442. North Las Vegas logged $1,879 just on entertainment and gifts, Henderson spent $4,239 in the same category, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department had the largest one-year expenditure on entertainment and gifts in the last decade at $9,219 in 2001.

In terms of lobbying the federal government, so far in 2008 alone state and local governments have spent at least $4,992,000. The largest expenditures have been by the Nevada System of Higher Education (at least $1.2 million in combined expenses), the Office of the Clark County Manager ($566,000), and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority ($270,000). Interestingly, the LVCVA spent more on lobbying than did the City of Las Vegas ($240,000).

So what do taxpayers get for their money that is spent on lobbying? If the goal of these expenditures is to get federal pork-barrel projects allocated to the state, then Nevada taxpayers are definitely not getting their money’s worth. The state ranks 49th in receipt of federal aid to state and local governments per capita and 50th in federal spending per capita. Further, for each dollar that Nevadans send to Washington, D.C., the federal government returns only 73 cents in services.

While lobbying today, in the aftermath of various scandals, is in widespread disrepute, the fact remains that Americans have a constitutional right to petition the government. Yet government-to-government lobbying is a different creature entirely and one in need of full transparency. That means: not only the amount of money spent on lobbying must be disclosed, but also the details on how that money was spent.

Thus, a circumspect and responsible Nevada Legislature would, at its first new opportunity, pass legislation mandating that state and local governments keep detailed, line-item records of their lobbying expenses and make those records available on the Web. Further, record-keeping thresholds should be lowered so that all lobbying expenditures are transparent to the public.

Especially in a time when Nevada’s economy is deteriorating and taxpayers are facing dramatically higher living costs, fiscal reforms of numerous kinds should be high on lawmakers’ agenda. Reform of intergovernmental lobbying may not be a cure-all, but it can ease some economic difficulty for taxpayers. Reform will also bring a higher level of transparency that is desperately needed in Nevada’s state and local governments.