Local governments in Nevada are seeking more autonomy on how they choose replacements on their boards, organize their management structure and distribute legal notices to the public, and the legislative session that begins Feb. 6 may be their opportunity to get it.
Here’s a breakdown of legislative priorities and proposed bills for the Nevada Association of Counties (NACO), Clark, Elko and Washoe counties, and Carson City.
Streamlining county administrative tasks
NACO is made up of representatives from the state’s 17 counties. Executive Director Vinson Guthreau said the group aims to represent collective county issues and monitor bills that affect county services and administration.
• Allowing county commissioners to choose how to fill vacancies (SB20)
NACO wants to give county commissioners the power to fill vacancies on their own board. State law only allows the Nevada governor to appoint someone if there’s a vacancy on a county commission. The proposed bill would allow county commissioners to create a different process by ordinance and stipulate that the appointee must belong to the same political party as the former officeholder.
City councils in Nevada already have the authority to fill vacancies. After two Reno City Council members resigned back-to-back in 2022, the city council chose to appoint their replacements instead of holding special elections. After Sparks Mayor Ron Smith died in 2020, Sparks City Council appointed Ed Lawson, who was a councilman at the time.
“The cities have, not the luxury, but they have the authority to do either a special election or an appointment. So, looking to get local input on local vacancies,” Guthreau said.
Efforts to streamline county child welfare services (SB41)
This proposed bill aims to improve how county child welfare services receive and use funding. State law requires the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to award incentive payments to counties with populations over 100,000 that provide child welfare services, which only includes Washoe and Clark counties. The bill would require the agency receiving a grant to provide a description of the agency’s goals for the biennium and then later submit a report on whether goals were met.
It would also require the Legislature’s Joint Interim Standing Committee on Health and Human Services, which under state law reviews child welfare issues, to study funding issues and the effects of decreases in Medicaid reimbursements to child welfare service providers, and suggest solutions.
“Demands on child welfare in all of our counties is high, Clark and Washoe, especially. It’s just a constant service delivery,” Guthreau said. “I call it a solutions bill. We’re not in search of a problem, we’re sort of in search of a solution for what problems we might uncover.”
Authorizes electronic publication of certain notices (SB22)
State law requires local governments to publish legal notices — advising the public about ordinances under discussion, public hearings and zoning disputes — in a regularly circulating print newspaper. This measure would revise state law to allow the notices to be published online rather than in a printed newspaper.
As newspapers, specifically in rural areas, circulate less often and move online, the requirement for printing legal notices in newspapers can delay government business, Guthreau said.
Not every news source relies on advertising dollars, but some printed newspapers still depend on businesses and jurisdictions to pay for print space to stay afloat and maintain staff. Moving publications of legal notices online will strain local printed newspapers that are struggling and rely on the consistent revenue stream from the notices.
“Our intent is not to bankrupt local newspapers,” Guthreau said. “But I do think our members believe that if newspapers are going to push to a more online delivery format, that our laws should reflect that delivery.”
Guthreau also said NACO is working with the Nevada Press Association (NPA) and other stakeholders to find the best way to provide legal notices to those without internet access.
“With legislation, the devil is in the details,” said NPA’s lobbyist Kami Dempsey-Goudie. She said NPA is working with NACO to determine what this bill will actually look like by the end of session, but the final result is still a long way off.
Giving local governments autonomy over offroading trails (AB47)
Another proposed piece of legislation calls for giving local governments more autonomy to govern off-highway vehicle (OHV) trails. Current state law prohibits people, in most cases, from operating an off-road vehicle on a paved highway. The bill would allow local governments to go through an ordinance process to construct, operate or maintain trails for offroading adjacent to paved highways.
“There’s some ambiguity, I think, in law right now in our counties,” Guthreau said. “It’s making it very clear we don’t want to impact paved roads, but sort of allowing for those networks.”
Revising population thresholds for smaller counties (SB21)
NACO also wants to make minor adjustments to population thresholds in state law, which addresses how many county officials are required in sparsely populated counties. Now, counties with a population of 45,000 or less can combine the duties of two or more county offices into one. They can also spread the duties of one county office to two or more offices. This measure would increase the 45,000-person threshold to 52,000.
For example, many rural or frontier counties don’t have a registrar of voters, but put the county clerk in charge of elections.
It would only affect some rural counties, such as Nye, that are near their population threshold. The Legislature put forth a similar bill in 2011 after the 2010 census.