MINUTES OF THE meeting
of the
ASSEMBLY Committee on Taxation
Seventy-Second Session
May 7, 2003
The Committee on Taxationwas called to order at 4:14 p.m., on Wednesday, May 7, 2003. Chairman David Parks presided in Room 4100 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada, and, via simultaneous videoconference, in Room 4401 of the Grant Sawyer Office Building, 555 E. Washington Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
Note: These minutes are compiled in the modified verbatim style. Bracketed material indicates language used to clarify and further describe testimony. Actions of the Committee are presented in the traditional legislative style.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mr. David Parks, Chairman
Mr. David Goldwater, Vice Chairman
Mr. Bernie Anderson
Mr. Morse Arberry Jr.
Mrs. Dawn Gibbons
Mr. Tom Grady
Mr. Josh Griffin
Mr. Lynn Hettrick
Mr. John Marvel
Ms. Kathy McClain
Mr. Harry Mortenson
Ms. Peggy Pierce
COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:
None
GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:
Senator Michael Schneider, Clark County Senatorial District No. 11
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Ted Zuend, Deputy Fiscal Analyst
June Rigsby, Committee Secretary
OTHERS PRESENT:
Alfredo Alonso, representing Southern Wine and Spirits of America, Inc.
Dino DiCianno, Deputy Executive Director, Department of Taxation
Bob Shriver, Executive Director, Nevada Commission on Economic Development
Berlyn Miller, Vice Chairman, Nevada Commission on Economic Development
Somer Hollingsworth, President/CEO, Nevada Development Authority
Carole Vilardo, representing the Nevada Taxpayers Association
Dave Dawley, Assessor, Carson City
Alan Caldwell, Chairman, Independent Power Corporation
Joe Johnson, representing the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club and Sunrise Sustainable Resources Group
Neena Laxalt, representing the Nevada Propane Dealers Association
John Slaughter, Program Manager, Legislative Affairs, Washoe County
Paul Urban, Project Manager, Truckee Meadows Flood Control Project, Washoe County Department of Water Resources
Nicole Lamboley, Legislative Relations Program Manager, Office of the City Manager, City of Reno
Chairman Parks:
I’d like to call the Assembly Committee on Taxation to order. We’ll open the hearing on Senate Bill 373. We have Senator Schneider in attendance.
Senate Bill 373 (1st Reprint): Revises certain provisions governing importation of liquor by common or contract carrier. (BDR 32-858)
Senator Michael Schneider, Clark County Senatorial District No. 11:
[Introduced himself.] Thank you for hearing this bill, Mr. Chairman. A couple of sessions ago we changed the laws relating to the direct shipment of wine into Nevada. We are now able to ship 12 cases of wine per year, per adult, into Nevada for personal consumption.
[Senator Schneider, continued] We had good success with it, but all of a sudden UPS (United Parcel Service) quit shipping, saying that the way we were shipping wine in Nevada was illegal. We are attempting here to adjust the reading of our law. We’ve worked with the Department of Taxation so that UPS will ship wine into Nevada.
Their problem was the paperwork that was involved. We’ve tried to streamline the law, and I think Taxation is on board. UPS is computerized now, so they can turn records over to the wineries or to the Department of Taxation upon request.
There’s a winery here in Genoa, Nevada, called Tahoe Ridge Vineyards and Winery. They told me a story about their experience with interstate shipment of wine. They ship wine to people in California and other states. For them to ship wine using UPS, they have to take their wine from Genoa to Truckee, California, and mail it from there. This doesn’t make sense. What we’re trying to do is adjust the law and work with our Department of Taxation to make it easier for UPS to ship wine interstate.
Alfredo Alonso, representing Southern Wine and Spirits of America, Inc.:
[Introduced himself.] We believe this bill should fix most of UPS’s concerns and allow for direct shipment to take place again. UPS attempted to deliver wine to my home, but I wasn’t there to accept it, so it got sent back and destroyed. Senator Schneider certainly has a meritorious piece of legislation here.
Assemblyman Anderson:
They destroyed the wine?
Alfredo Alonso:
When I received the notice, I called UPS and they said they had destroyed the wine. I guess if there isn’t someone who could accept the wine at the door, their policy is to destroy those packages, which doesn’t make sense. This bill fixes the shipment piece of the law so, hopefully, this won’t happen again.
Assemblyman Anderson:
You order wine from out of state prepaid, right? [Mr. Alonso agreed.] It came by UPS, but they didn’t return it back to the shipper who could have credited your account?
Alfredo Alonso:
That’s correct. I don’t understand it, either, but I guess it has happened to others, according to the individuals in California who own the business. Anything we can do to help this process helps the individual. Therefore, I support it.
Senator Schneider:
The wine’s just getting dumped. UPS goes to the winery. They know what they’re picking up, but they get to Nevada and say, “Oh, we can’t have this wine in Nevada because the laws don’t allow that.” This bill would clarify the law.
Chairman Parks:
Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this bill? Is there any comment the Department of Taxation would like to offer?
Dino DiCianno, Deputy Executive Director, Department of Taxation:
[Introduced himself.] As Senator Schneider indicated, we did work with his and UPS’ amendments in the Senate. We are satisfied with those amendments and with the bill as it reads right now.
Chairman Parks:
Are there any questions for Mr. DiCianno? [There were none.] Is there anyone else who would like to speak on Senate Bill 373? [There was no response.] If not, we’ll close the hearing on S.B. 373 and open the hearing on S.B. 473.
Senate Bill 473 (1st Reprint): Makes various changes to provisions governing abatement of taxes for new or expanded businesses. (BDR 32-1241)
Bob Shriver, Executive Director, Nevada Commission on Economic Development:
[Introduced himself.] With me today is our Vice Chairman of the Commission, Berlyn Miller, and in Las Vegas is the President/CEO of the Nevada Development Authority, Somer Hollingsworth. We appreciate your consideration of this bill.
S.B. 473 reflects changes in the marketplace as we see them. What we’re trying to do with our incentive and investment program is attract and encourage Nevada companies to grow and establish operations here. We’re searching for high wage, high skill employment companies that pay health benefits. There are requirements, however, so we’ve lowered some of the thresholds to reflect the type of businesses we’re seeing. Before, we were going through the dilemma of always trying to fit them in under our criteria. On page 2, lines 17 and 38 of S.B. 473, we’re reducing the number of full-time employees an eligible business must have on their payroll. Line 17 reflects counties with populations over 100,000 and cities with populations over 60,000. Line 38 reduces the number of full-time employees from 25 to 10 in counties under 100,000 in population and cities with populations of less than 60,000. I think those figures would be a truer representation of the marketplace as we see it. We think that the most important aspect is not so much the employment size but the wage and the investment the business brings into the state.
[Mr. Shriver, continued] On page 3, line 36, and continuing on to page 4, through line 12 of S.B. 473, is our attempt to reflect a new effort at outlining intellectual-property-intense companies that want to develop technologies. They don’t necessarily have to be that kind of company, but we would prefer to see that type of growth in Nevada. Although our laws probably could accommodate it, I think we need to encourage this type of entrepreneurial development in Nevada. These criteria reflect that and that’s why we would like to see this established for our Commission. Hopefully, we’ll not only attract some new companies into Nevada but, more importantly, we’ll encourage the development of companies in our work with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Nevada, Reno, on that aggressive technology transfer program. That’s why that new language is in there.
Page 6, lines 17 and 31, of S.B. 473, reflect a more realistic approach in our property tax abatement program. We’re just not seeing the large operations; we’re seeing fewer capital-intensive operations, so this gives the Commission a little more flexibility to act. Also, when companies look at those lowered standards they realize that there’s a possibility for property tax abatements to be made available if they meet the other criteria. The primary criterion is our statewide average wage requirement.
Page 7 of S.B. 473 reflects one of the things we’re finding in the marketplace. Last session, this body added renewable resource energy development as one of the criteria for receiving tax incentives from the Commission. What we’re seeing is another form, energy storage devices, and we want to make sure we don’t exclude any new, potentially high-growth companies on the horizon. We want to be able to attract those companies to the state, and that is reflected on page 7, lines 16 and 39.
On page 8, beginning on line 18, we’ve looked at our business tax abatement program and made more sense of it. We currently have an 80/60/40/20 percent progression in the abatement program for sales and use tax. What we’re asking for is a straight 50 percent, which is exactly what the 80/60/40/20 turns out to be. The county will actually receive the money sooner because they will get 30 percent more up front then they currently do. It’s an easier, more understandable tax abatement.
[Mr. Shriver, continued] Page 8 of S.B. 473, beginning on line 44, is for machinery or equipment that is purchased for the duration of a lease. We are seeing more and more companies investing in leased equipment rather than purchasing that equipment. Technology is changing so quickly that we’re finding our clientele looking at leasing equipment. That’s one of the primary drivers of that proposed change to the statute. Also, more of these companies are looking at the federal tax benefits for leasing, so we’re working with Mr. DiCianno and the Department of Taxation on appropriate regulations to address that as well. That again is addressed in energy storage devices.
The purpose of the bill is to update and modernize our varied tax incentives. At this time, I would like to turn the testimony over to our Vice Chairman, Berlyn Miller.
Berlyn Miller, Vice Chairman, Nevada Commission on Economic Development:
[Introduced himself.] All of these changes we’re requesting in this bill are the result of requests from the local development authorities—they were not generated by us at the state level—particularly from NDA (Nevada Development Authority), EDAWN (Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada), and NNDA (Northern Nevada Development Authority) in Reno, Las Vegas, and Carson City. They found that too many companies couldn’t qualify under the original standards and that we were losing some of the companies to other states.
When we put these original requirements in, we wanted to make it very restrictive so that we could work with it over a period of time to make sure it was economically beneficial to the state. In my opinion, it has been economically beneficial to the state.
Assemblyman Goldwater:
We put these standards in place for a very good reason. The abatement for economic development has a compelling argument in some cases, but lowering these standards is an awful idea. We want to open this up. We’ve been hearing tax debates on how Nevada is currently such a low tax environment and if we put these taxes in we’ll drive business out. Even with these abatement programs, Nevada currently enjoys a very low tax environment, yet we still want to abate taxes and now we want to abate them even more. We’re telling companies, “Come here. Put your kids in school. Bring your grandparents over and we’ll take care of them, but we don’t want you to pay taxes.” Now we want to expand that even more. I find that very disturbing at this time.
In my opinion, the best thing we can do to attract business to Nevada is have a decent social infrastructure, good schools and a good university, and we can’t do that by abating taxes. How are the local authorities dealing with that very difficult question and why is state economic development saying we should abate these even further?
Berlyn Miller:
We went to the local authorities first because, in a lot of cases, this was property tax that would be given up by the county and the school district. I insisted that we get their concurrence before giving these abatements so that they understand what they’re doing. We think, and our models show, that the state gets a return on the investment.
Assemblyman Goldwater:
What kind of return do we get?
Berlyn Miller:
In most cases these are taxes that, if we hadn’t given the incentives and attracted the companies, we wouldn’t be getting anyway. So we haven’t lost anything.
Assemblyman Goldwater:
What kinds of businesses have we lost or are we losing, and do we want them anyway? We had a big presentation the other day that said, “We’re losing this business; we’re losing that business.” Some of them are good to lose; they’re not good to have. Our job isn’t to attract every single business. We set a threshold and said, “We want these kinds of businesses.” Now we’re saying we want other kinds of businesses? Why?
Berlyn Miller:
We’re not accepting just any business. We require a certain wage level. We require a certain level of employee benefits that the company must have and those sorts of things. We look very strongly at that, and we don’t grant every applicant that comes through the door. Most businesses that do not have good quality jobs are discouraged by the local development authorities. If they continue, then our staff discourages them and, in some cases, if the applications get to the Commission, we deny those if we don’t think they are in the best interests of the state.
I will let Mr. Hollingsworth add to that because he’s the individual who works on a day-to-day basis with these companies.
Somer Hollingsworth, President/CEO, Nevada Development Authority:
Let me read you a statement and then I’ll respond to what Berlyn’s talking about.
Senate Bill 473 is an excellent bill that will allow the CED, Commission on Economic Development, and the development authorities in Nevada to become more in tune to the types of companies that we are able to attract to our state. After September 11, 2001, the scope of companies relocating throughout America changed completely. The types and sizes of companies that we are recruiting and that dominate our list of contacts are few and far between now. We are now dealing with, and recruiting, companies that look a lot different. They have higher wages and better benefits, but fewer employees and smaller capital investment. We are seeing competition for these companies from other states and cities at a time when incentives and solicitations are at an all-time high. S.B. 473 doesn’t diminish the quality of companies being approved for incentives; it simply keeps Nevada in tune with current economic conditions specific to recruitment and the diversification of our state.
It is very important that Nevada remains flexible and able to make changes at a state level as we move toward a diversified economy. S.B. 473 is a product of the CED and all of the development authorities in Nevada working together for the good of our state. I ask that you support S.B. 473, as amended.
If the NDA, the EDAWN, and the CED all went away, there would still be 5,000 people moving into southern Nevada each month. We’re not about growth; we’re about jobs. We need to supply jobs for those people. They’re not going to slow down. We don’t see any slowdown of the California market moving into southern Nevada. I think September 11 was a wakeup call. One of the proofs that has become apparent since September 11 is that diversification does work. It has been working and we finally got that proof. In 1993, 28 percent of the workforce was employed in gaming. In 2002, only about 24 percent of the workforce was employed in gaming. Those ten years in between produced the greatest growth in the gaming industry with an increase of approximately 75,000 people. One of the things we did not see was a trickle-down effect. In the old days when gaming slowed down everyone was affected. If you had a grocery store, hot dog stand, or print shop, even if you didn’t have one customer associated with gaming, you still slowed down. Sometimes you laid off employees and sometimes you had to close your doors. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, of 15,000 people laid off in southern Nevada, the majority came from the resort industry.
Assemblyman Goldwater:
When the terrorist attack of September 11 happened, no one was rushing to relocate his or her business. They came to the safety net of government programs we have in place that are funded with taxes. When we abate those taxes, we make holes in the safety net. It’s a very poor argument to answer the concerns that I raised. I think the answer is that we need to sell Nevada, but not on price. We need to sell Nevada on quality, and that is what good economic development does. I know the CED does that, and I know the NDA does, too, but let’s not give away the shop here.
Somer Hollingsworth:
If the diversification process had not taken place over the last ten years the way it had in Nevada, especially southern Nevada, September 11 would have been so devastating to this community we probably would have never recovered. The non-gaming companies in southern Nevada were not affected, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The 15,000 people laid off were in the gaming industry. In essence, the taxes generated by these diversified economies, by these non-gaming companies, have been huge. It’s been a tremendous amount of money. Jobs create tax revenue. Jobs equal payroll. Payroll equals employee economic impact; employee economic impact equals tax revenue, and that’s what it’s all about. These people buy goods and services, pay their 7.25 percent sales tax, and pay their property tax. They’re good citizens, and these corporations pay all the taxes that they’re supposed to.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
How’s the lithium polymer film battery project coming along that you once told us about?
Bob Shriver:
We’re currently in the presentation process with that corporation. That project is seriously considering Nevada, along with other states in the southwestern United States that are offering incredible amounts of everything that we are not offering, because they still realize the value of Nevada in our location, our commitment to the education process, and everything else. In fact, when we got through explaining how our incentives worked, they were very amenable to looking at Nevada again and much more closely, so I’m happy to report we’re in the hunt for that project.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
How many employees and what’s the average wage?
Bob Shriver:
The initial employment level will be 400–500 people, and the average salary will be in excess of $19 to $22 per hour, including full benefits. You can’t compete for high skilled wages without offering health benefits, retirement packages, and everything else, and that’s what our whole incentive program is aimed at.
This is an abatement program; it’s not an exemption. The state still gets its 2 percent of the sales tax. If the corporation applies for, receives, and pays the security bond necessary for a deferral, the state still gets its money. Most of our incentives have an impact on local governments first. That’s why our Commissioner, Vice Chairman Miller, mentioned his insistence that we have meetings with county assessors, school boards, and everyone else to explain the econometric modeling program. It shows how quickly the local government entities would have recouped the lost taxes if this company had come and we had not collected the tax up front. It’s anywhere from weeks to about one to one and a half years, depending on the size of the operation. The number of employees the business has sometimes reflects that, too. It just depends on the average wage. In a state that’s primarily sales-tax based, we have to look at how people spend money. We can’t look at income taxes as a way to judge it, so we’re constantly trying to find the best way to analyze it and also working the econometric model.
On February 13, we appeared before you and the Senate Committee on Taxation, as we have done every year, and spoke about the incentive program, the payback, what it had done for the state, and the types of companies that had come to Nevada. Unfortunately, the abatement game is part of the way the real world operates. Every state and every county is in it, but there are fewer projects now than there were two to four years ago. Competition’s even more intense. As Somer Hollingsworth mentioned, a lot of the projects aren’t quite as big as they used to be; however, the ones we want to attract to Nevada and the ones that would qualify for our abatement are the high wage, high skill, and high growth companies. Microsoft started out as a small company; they all did. Our goal is to make Nevada their home base. We want to grow those companies here and interface with the universities’ research programs. We think we have a chance. Nontechnology companies, too, are phenomenal and have a great growth opportunity in the state.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
I think you also mentioned that their capital investment was going to be on the order of a billion dollars or so?
Bob Shriver:
Right. Over a ten-year period, the project you’re talking about will be the largest industrial project ever in the state of Nevada.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
I hope you get that.
Assemblyman Marvel:
In some respects I have to disagree with my colleague. In some areas in northern Nevada we’re not really gaming dependent but we have been mining dependent. We have the resources there, the water and the land. I think anything we could do to attract people would be good. The workforce has been there, but they’ve been laid off even though many are highly skilled people. There are also a lot of college-educated people who would like to stay there. I would be in favor of anything we can do to encourage these people to come into Nevada.
Assemblyman Grady:
Lyon County has taken advantage of these abatements and incentives, and it has a very conservative group of county commissioners that used to feel much like Mr. Goldwater does. If it were not for abatements, we would not have some of the major industrial development we have in the Fernley area. Because of that development, a lot of houses have been sold and a lot of real estate has been placed on the tax rolls. I support the legislation.
Assemblywoman Pierce:
You did a presentation for the Assembly Committee on Government Affairs at the beginning of the session about the companies that had come in, and that looked good. I have to say that Mr. Goldwater’s logic is impeccable here. I’ve been here since the third of February, and virtually everyone at that microphone has told me that businesses come to Nevada because of low taxes and that if we raise taxes, life, as we know it, will end. Now you’re here to say that low taxes aren’t good enough; it’s got to be lower taxes. That’s frustrating.
Berlyn Miller:
Taxes alone are not enough to attract new businesses, particularly the kinds of companies we’re trying to attract that pay high wages, have large capital investments in equipment, and are high tech. Somer Hollingsworth can tell you he loses companies to our competition every day. The tax structure alone is not sufficient.
To comment on Assemblyman Mortenson’s question regarding that particular company we’re working very hard on, Bob Shriver mentioned it would start with 400–500 employees, but it’s going to grow from a few hundred to a few thousand employees over a ten-year period. I would suggest to you that, while they’re looking at us along with one or two other locations now, without our incentive program, without our abatement program, they probably wouldn’t be looking at us at all.
Assemblyman Hettrick:
I understand the concerns, but we don’t make enough of the fact that you can’t lose what you don’t have. If you don’t have these businesses here paying taxes, then you have no tax revenue being generated. If you offer them some kind of abatement, you’re offering an incentive to come here and ultimately pay taxes. You have to look at the whole thing and not just one piece. It’s a circle. If you look at the fact that you’re not giving away something you have, but offering to abate something you don’t have, then it makes nothing but sense to try to promote diversification and the spreading of our tax base. That’s what we’re trying to do. It looks to me like this thing makes sense.
Somer Hollingsworth:
That’s an excellent point. We don’t call it an incentive; it’s an ROI, a return on investment. The state is investing in these companies. The dollars are not in the system, so the companies are not taking existing dollars out of a system. Those dollars are not in the system yet. The NDA, the state, and the EDAWN are all using the same econometric model. It’s the Minnesota IMPLAN Model. It’s been tested by the federal government, most of the states use it, and we do an econometric model on every company. When we make a presentation to the Commission on Economic Development, we can tell them almost to the day or week how long it takes for this company to pay that investment back with the taxes their employees will generate. We do that on a continual basis.
I wish that the current tax situation in Nevada were the only draw we needed to get these companies, because we wouldn’t need the Commission on Economic Development. I would simply open up the doors and take care of them, but that’s not the case. It’s more than that. It’s a combination of a lot of good things we have here, too, like the workforce, but the incentive program is very important.
Another point I need to make is that not all of our companies go for the incentives. Only the “cream of the crop” are allowed to even go forward for the incentives, and then the Commission on Economic Development has the choice of accepting those companies or turning them down.
Assemblyman Goldwater:
Do you keep statistics on companies that take advantage of these abatements and these incentives and then leave as soon as they’re through?
Bob Shriver:
Yes, we do. Part of the partnership we have is with the Department of Taxation. Companies that have left have either been bought out by larger corporations or moved. They’re still on the hook. They have five years to pay the abatements off. That’s part of a provision we insisted on when this legislation was first drawn up. If they do leave, they owe us the money. We keep very close track of that. A lot of it is due to buyouts. Some of it, unfortunately, is due to bad business decisions. Fortunately, we’re seeing less of that.
Assemblyman Goldwater:
The difference in philosophy is to bring them in with some financial incentive. My philosophy is to attract them with good schools, good universities, good roads, and good social services. Let’s attract them with that. Anyone can sell on price. Anyone can give away the shop. Let’s attract them with good things and you can’t get those good things without taxes. The essential question on this bill is why do we need to lower the standard even more?
Bob Shriver:
The type of companies we’re seeing in the marketplace, and that we provide incentives for, are what we call “primary employers.” They do not make the majority of their income in the state of Nevada; they import new dollars into the state. That’s why we want to get those types of companies. They can locate in Arizona, Utah, California, wherever, but we want to be the state of choice. Unfortunately, one of the things they look at during their site selection is the incentive program, and, in the scheme of things, ours doesn’t stack up very high. They have significant impact when included with the growth of communities like Las Vegas, to which we’re attracting some fabulous talent because of living conditions, the geography, and the transportation network we have developed. We play off of those advantages. Our major industry, the gaming industry, is something we play off of as well. All of those go into the whole mix when they look at a city, and they look at education very closely. That’s why we’re actively involved in doing anything we can. In fact, the Commission worked with the UCCSN (University and Community College System of Nevada) in the development of the Nevada Technology Partnership Plan.
We think we need to have a blueprint and a strategic plan of where we want to go. The University certainly needs it as well. These types of companies, because of their wage structure and because of the capital investment they make, are putting a lot more dollars back in than they’ll ever get from us. Their wages pay for themselves because they have to include health benefits. They have to include retirement programs or they can’t hire the right people. The community colleges and the universities need to develop the types of skill sets that they’re looking for. We want to try to attract the companies of the future that our students now in school are going to be employed by, and that’s why we have to aggressively pursue them. It’s part of the game. We have done a good job in this state of crafting our tax abatement and incentive program, an investment program, as Somer Hollingsworth called it, to do just that. We do look at return on investment. We look at it as we would a business investment.
Assemblyman Griffin:
I support this because, while the economies of northern and southern Nevada are different, if you look at those diversification efforts, what happened after September 11 had a much smaller impact on the economy and the public services in northern Nevada than it did in southern Nevada. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the fact that there was an ongoing employment infrastructure in place that was not singularly dependent on tourism probably saved millions of tax dollars in what could have been a very bad situation.
I don’t think what Mr. Goldwater is saying is necessarily exclusive to that. I think Mr. Hollingsworth can verify that quality education and quality universities are a top priority that CED has long talked about, and continues to talk about. I think these abatements are worth it. Obviously, our competing states all do the same thing anyway, and I don’t know if we want to take that out of play so we don’t get those opportunities.
Chairman Parks:
Further questions? [There was no response.] I believe we may have some other individuals on the sign-in sheet. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on Senate Bill 473?
Dino DiCianno, Deputy Executive Director, Department of Taxation:
[Reintroduced himself.] The Department is neutral with respect to the bill. We did have discussions with Mr. Shriver and Mr. Miller prior to the hearing. We were initially concerned about the scope of the bill with respect to leased property. I believe that has been resolved. What we will do is work with the Commission on Economic Development and with the Tax Commission with respect to the promulgation of regulations.
Chairman Parks:
Is there anyone else who would like to speak on Senate Bill 473? If not, we’ll close the hearing on S.B. 473 and open the hearing on S.B. 440. Is there anyone in the audience who wants to speak on S.B. 440?
Senate Bill 440 (1st Reprint): Provides for postponement of payment of property taxes in cases of severe economic hardship under certain circumstances. (BDR 32-658)
Carole Vilardo, representing the Nevada Taxpayers Association:
[Introduced herself.] I’m speaking in support of what S.B. 440 does. I want to note that this is the same concept, derived from the same issue, as Assemblyman Hettrick’s bill, which has just recently been heard on the Senate side. This bill also came out of the voters’ approval of Question 8 on the November general ballot, which was the hardship exemption. The reason the Association supports this, as we supported the ballot question, is that there has been a great deal of discussion over the last three or four legislative sessions relative to the state being able to use property tax because of the stability of the property tax. This bill would try to ensure that people would not be put out of their homes because of severe property tax increases.
At this point, I’m not going to tell the Committee which bill needs to pass or which is better because we’re going to be happy with whatever goes through. We need some relief, one way or the other, for the homeowner who could have a problem paying increased property taxes depending on what those increases are.
The policy issue of which bill you prefer is probably going to have to be settled between the chairmen of the committees, and I think the technical issues are better addressed by the representative of the assessors. I urge your support, but I’m not going to try to tell you which is the better bill of the two. They both have excellent elements in them. They are different. S.B. 440 is more restrictive than Assemblyman Hettrick’s bill.
Assemblyman Hettrick:
The bills, as Ms. Vilardo pointed out, are totally different. This bill, S.B. 440, applies to an owner-occupied primary residence and my bill applies to land that would be a loss to the government and taken off the tax rolls because no one else would buy it. Today I e-mailed the members of the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means that the Douglas County Assessor informed me that the Forest Service just reduced the amount of money they will now pay, based on their most recent appraisal, for the land they want to take away from the family in Douglas County because no one else will buy the property. The tax bill, based on state law, should be on an assessed value of $9 million. This is a piece of property that no one can buy, develop, or use in any way, and these people are trying to pay the property taxes and keep the property but are being forced off by our existing state law. The two bills are totally different and address different issues. This bill, S.B. 440, applies to the entire property; mine applies only to land.
Chairman Parks:
Mr. Hettrick, would you like to venture which is the better bill?
Assemblyman Hettrick:
They’re different, so I don’t think there’s a better bill. Senator O’Connell’s bill, which is this bill, intends to address primarily seniors and those on fixed, lower incomes who are totally devastated by the increases in their total property tax. My bill is attempting to keep government entities from being the only people who can afford to own a piece of property in a special situation, thus taking it off the tax rolls. Mine would have some impact, in a very few cases, on property owners who could show severe economic hardship on a home. Beyond that, it basically affects property.
Carole Vilardo:
I have not had the time to go through these bills line-by-line. If they should both be processed, there are some differences, and there would be some mechanical conflicts. At the very least, there needs to be a review, if both should be processed, to make sure we’re not creating unintended consequences. Those would not be relative to the policy issue you’re dealing with, but relative to how easily these can be administered, either by an assessor or a treasurer. That’s always a concern of ours because you don’t want to enact a tax that can’t be administered or complied with.
Assemblyman Marvel:
Could your concerns be resolved by regulation?
Carole Vilardo:
Because of the reprints on the bills, I would need to do a line-by-line match. I could not answer it now. I could attempt to answer this for you Friday, unless Mr. Zuend has already done this or is aware of something I might not know.
Dave Dawley, Assessor, Carson City:
The big problem I have with this particular bill is that they have the assessors’ offices administering it. The assessors’ offices are responsible for setting the assessed values, not for the collection of taxes. I’m not sure it’s actually the assessor’s responsibility to postpone these taxes and add the appropriate interest. I believe it should fall on the tax collectors themselves.
Chairman Parks:
Is there anyone else who would like to speak on Senate Bill 440? [There was no response.] We’ll close the hearing on S.B. 440 and open the hearing on S.B. 466.
Senate Bill 466: Authorizes disclosure of certain information from records and files of Department of Taxation concerning administration of business tax. (BDR 32-555)
Dino DiCianno, Deputy Executive Director, Department of Taxation:
[Reintroduced himself.] I appear before you today in support of the Department’s bill, S.B. 466, which would allow for the release of information to the public regarding only whether or not a business has the Nevada business license. Currently, the confidentiality statute, NRS (Nevada Revised Statutes) 364A.100, with respect to business tax, does not allow for the release of any information in regard to whether or not a business has a state business license. The Department of Taxation would like to be able to confirm to the public only the information that a business is registered and has a license.
The Department of Taxation receives a significant number of complaints from the general public and other businesses, especially contractors and subcontractors, as to why we cannot release the information. No financial information would be released to the general public, only whether or not the business has registered with the Department.
Chairman Parks:
Questions? [There were none.] Is there anyone else who would like to speak on S.B. 466? There being none, we’ll close the hearing on S.B. 466 and open the hearing on Senate Bill 489.
Senate Bill 489 (1st Reprint): Makes various changes to provisions governing exemption from local school support tax for systems that use renewable energy to generate electricity. (BDR 32-1135)
Alan Caldwell, Chairman, Independent Power Corporation:
[Introduced himself.] Independent Power Corporation, based in Sparks, Nevada, designs, sells, and services solar electric and solar thermal systems. While this partial sales tax exemption, under Senate Bill 489, does not financially benefit companies like mine, I can speak for our customers who are very appreciative of this gesture by the state to defray at least a small portion of the cost of their solar systems.
[Mr. Caldwell, continued] I’d like to begin my comments on this proposed sales tax exemption for renewable energy systems by quoting from a study published last month by the Center for Business and Economic Research at UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas). The report was commissioned by the state Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Task Force to determine the potential economic impact of renewables on Nevada’s economy. The study determined that, “When 15 percent of electric needs come from renewable energy generated within the state, over 5,000 jobs can be attributed to the renewable energy industry with an average annual gross state product effect of $665 million through 2035.” That’s over $21 billion cumulatively.
We need to continue to encourage the newly emerging renewable energy industry in this state and help it take hold so that it can become an increasingly important component of our state’s economy. I would like to register my strong support for Senate Bill 489 as written and amended. It includes two key improvements over the original legislation passed during the 2001 Legislative Session. The first is the extension of this law through June 2005, rather than its original sunset date of June 30, 2003. The second improvement is the inclusion of solar thermal energy systems, along with the other forms of renewable energy, that were part of the original bill in the last session.
There are two distinct types of solar energy systems on the market today: solar electric, or PV [photo-voltaic] systems, that create electricity; and solar thermal systems that generate heat. Because both systems offset the use of electricity or natural gas, both should be included in this legislation.
There is one inadvertent omission in the language of the bill. Since many of our customers at Independent Power Corporation use propane rather than electricity or natural gas to heat their water or their homes, I would like to ask the Committee to add propane to the energy sources listed in Section 1(b) of S.B. 489. This would bring it into line with Assembly Bill 429 for some measure of consistency in our legislation.
Chairman Parks:
Are there any questions for Mr. Caldwell?
Assemblyman Marvel:
How are these products assessed now?
Alan Caldwell:
I don’t know the answer to that. It varies from county to county, I believe. All our sales occur in Washoe County, since we’re based in Sparks. Once we sell a system to the customer we don’t follow it beyond that point other than for maintenance of the system.
Carole Vilardo, representing the Nevada Taxpayers Association:
I think your staff person may have the answer. This has nothing to do with assessments. This is a sales tax exemption on the local portion of the sales tax. It has nothing to do with property tax.
Assemblywoman Pierce:
You talked about 5,000 jobs. Do we have any idea if any jobs have been created since this act was enacted, and, if so, how many?
Alan Caldwell:
This is under the Renewable Portfolio Standard that was enacted in the last session. The power company has gone forward with an RFP (Request For Proposal). They have selected four geothermal companies, two wind companies, and one solar company. None of those contracts have been activated yet. I believe the companies are moving forward to do that shortly. No jobs have been created yet, to my knowledge.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
Did I hear you say that you wanted to also include propane in this?
Alan Caldwell:
Yes, that is correct. I would like to add propane because it is a backup fuel in our systems. Normally, our systems rely primarily on solar energy but we still need the backup. The less backup you can use the more you save so, yes, I would like to include propane along with electricity and natural gas.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
I see some problems there. If you’ve got that exemption, I could see where somebody could put in a tiny, little solar cell and then build a huge electric generator that he runs on propane with very little intention of generating electricity with the solar system. Could that happen?
Alan Caldwell:
The original legislation required 75 percent of the system to be renewable, whether it’s wind or solar. That was a concern in the last session that someone would buy one small little solar panel and a huge generator. That’s not the case if 75 percent of the system has to be renewable.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
What is cheaper to run, propane or solar? If you were going to run both systems 100 percent of the time, which would be the cheaper electricity to sell?
Alan Caldwell:
You’d have to consider the initial capital costs. The most expensive way to heat water is with electricity; the second most expensive way is with propane; the third most expensive is natural gas.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
I have a bit of heartburn about allowing that because the whole point of renewable energy sources is to clean the air. If you get an exemption for running something that doesn’t clean up the air, I don’t know.
Alan Caldwell:
The solar system is designed to carry as much of the burden as possible. The backup systems, particularly the off-grid systems, are designed simply to be there so we can have 24-hour-a-day dispatchable power. When you’re using your solar systems and your batteries, you’re not using your propane, and that’s the idea of the system.
Assemblyman Mortenson:
I understand that. It’s just my opinion. I don’t know how the rest of the Committee will feel, but your exemption is to do something with the idea of keeping the air clean. That’s why we give you an exemption to begin with, but if you have a backup system that stinks up the air, why should we exempt that? I understand it’s backup and you need it, but should we exempt you when you’re using it?
Alan Caldwell:
The exemption is on the initial sale of the system.
Chairman Parks:
Perhaps Mr. Zuend can enlighten us a little.
Ted Zuend, Committee Deputy Fiscal Analyst:
If I understand Mr. Caldwell’s amendment, he wants to amend Section 1 where it says “electricity or natural gas” to read “electricity, natural gas, or propane.” Is that correct? [Mr. Caldwell agreed that it was.] The provision would actually say, “solar thermal energy that reduces the consumption of electricity, natural gas, or propane,” so it would be a system designed to replace some of the propane energy use. As I understand it, all he’s doing is covering all the bases to replace something. Without that, a system that is now operating with propane, theoretically, could not get this exemption.
[Mr. Zuend, continued] I’m not sure your concern is warranted. We have a representative from a conservation group here and he can explain it further.
Joe Johnson, representing the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club and Sunrise Sustainable Resources Group:
[Introduced himself.] Mr. Zuend defined the amendment perfectly in that including propane would allow folks who live in rural communities to qualify, as well as those who are serviced with natural gas. The existing language that you see on page 2 defines renewable energy and the types of systems. This particular section of the statute is under sales tax exemption and there are a few differences here as opposed to the Renewable Portfolio Standard that many of you heard in the Assembly Committee on Commerce and Labor. I would like to go on record that we support this bill.
Neena Laxalt, representing the Nevada Propane Dealers Association:
[Introduced herself.] There is currently a sales tax exemption for propane for domestic use. It doesn’t go any further than that. However, I’m a little confused as to where this language is trying to be changed.
Joe Johnson:
It’s just electricity, natural gas, or propane.
Neena Laxalt:
This would be to offset the use? [Joe Johnson agreed.]
Chairman Parks:
That would be lines 8 and 10.
Neena Laxalt:
I might oppose that. There was similar legislation that Joe Johnson wanted to introduce that offset the use of not only electricity but natural gas and propane, and we felt there was probably so little threat to our use for heaters, et cetera, we didn’t think it would take over our industry so we chose not to publicly oppose that legislation. Obviously, we may have a problem with anything that cuts into our industry, but it specifically states in the bill that propane is not a renewable energy source.
Chairman Parks:
Any comments or questions for either of these witnesses? Is there anyone else who would like to speak on S.B. 489? [There was no response.] I’ll close the hearing on S.B. 489 and open the hearing on Senate Bill 490.
Senate Bill 490 (1st Reprint): Authorizes use of money in infrastructure fund for operation and maintenance of flood control projects in certain counties. (BDR 32-579)
John Slaughter, Program Manager, Legislative Affairs, Washoe County:
[Introduced himself.] With me today is Paul Urban, Project Manager for the Truckee Meadows Flood Control Project. S.B. 490 authorizes the use of a small portion of sales tax for operation and maintenance of the Truckee Meadows Flood Control Project when constructed. The particular sales tax was authorized in 1997 to be used for infrastructure. We believe sales tax is an appropriate revenue source for this project because it is collected regionally and, if S.B. 490 passes, it will be used for this regional project.
Section 2 of the bill was added by the Senate and requires us to come back before this body in 2005 with a report on the Truckee Meadows Flood Control Project, as well as a detailed report on expenditures based on the funds that we’re asking for in this bill. We fully agree with that. We also have a number of cooperative partners in this project, including the cities of Reno and Sparks and several state and federal agencies, and we intend to keep them fully informed and involved throughout the life of the project.
Mr. Urban has a short presentation to explain the project, what’s been accomplished since 1997, and why the requirement exists that a revenue source be identified for operation and maintenance.
Chairman Parks:
Before we start the presentation does anybody have any questions for Mr. Slaughter?
Assemblyman Marvel:
Is this the same principle as what we did for Clark County? I think we gave them part of the sales tax for their project, too.
John Slaughter:
They do use part of the sales tax for their flood control project, yes.
Chairman Parks:
They have a quarter percent sales tax for that project.
Paul Urban, Project Manager, Truckee Meadows Flood Control Project, Washoe County Department of Water Resources:
[Mr. Urban gave a PowerPoint presentation accompanied by a handout of project material (Exhibit C)]. Flooding in the Truckee Meadows is nothing new. [Narration accompanying presentation.] Here we have a picture of downtown Reno in 1907 with high water and you can see that the water had been even higher. Flooding occurred again in 1950 and again in 1955. At the time, the 1950 flood was thought to be the end of the flooding; however, flooding occurred again in 1955, 1963, and 1986. This is what the eastern part of the Truckee Meadows looked like in 1986. You’re looking at the UNR (University of Nevada, Reno) main station farms. Flooding covered a large portion of land out there.
In 1997, this is what downtown Reno looked like once again and there are a couple of other pictures of what happened in 1997. Water was three feet deep at the airport. The industrial/commercial area in east Sparks was completely inundated. Approximately $700 million worth of damage was done in the 1997 flood alone. This is a map that shows the area that was flooded. Highway 395 is on the left, and where the Truckee Meadows ends and goes into the canyon is on the right [of the lower picture on page 6 of Exhibit C].
To handle this flooding, the US Army Corps of Engineers has been looking at various things since the mid-1960s. In 1985 they came up with a project that was authorized by Congress in 1988, but due to changes in how benefit-cost ratios were calculated, and also because the project had levees that were on the channel banks and didn’t allow any room for the river, the project was not approved. It had no public support.
This time around, we tried to do a watershed-wide approach and consider the river acting like itself. The Truckee River goes from Lake Tahoe down to Pyramid Lake, with the flood project in the middle. The Corps is reevaluating the authorized plan from 1988 and coming up with environmental impact statement alternatives. We went through a community coalition process to come up with a community-acceptable plan to be included in this mix of studies.
One of the things we believe makes this project very unique as a flood control project is, not only are we looking at flood protection, but we’re looking at protecting that protection through floodplain management to make sure that we don’t do things that reduce the protection. We believe the project will provide economic vitality because an area that is less susceptible to flooding will have less damages and will become a place more people will want to invest in. We’re looking at river restoration through the Truckee Meadows as a way of stabilizing channel banks, which would help with sediment problems in the Truckee River and other water quality issues, and also creating a river parkway throughout the town so that the Truckee River would be an amenity and not just a storm sewer. Flood damage reduction would also create community safety and well-being.
[Mr. Urban, continued] One of the things that would make this project work would be downstream restoration, because we would be sending additional water downstream. We would be compensating for that by restoring the river. A natural river can handle floods naturally without any significant damage and, in this particular case, downstream restoration would also help other issues such as open space desires and improved water quality, and would be very conducive to the fish restoration efforts of the endangered cui-ui and threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout. This is much more than just a flood protection project. We’re trying to maximize benefits, minimize impacts, and have something for all stakeholders.
Our Community Coalition looks something like this [page 8 of Exhibit C]: At the top is the Executive Committee, which are the county and city managers, and also the President of UNR. The President of UNR is included because UNR farms take up a significant portion of the area that we need. The Executive Committee provides our policy guidance. Underneath them is a steering committee, the Technical Committee, made up of the public works directors and their staffs from the sponsors—Reno, Sparks, and Washoe County—who deal with all the information, work with the Corps in different technical respects, and report back to the Executive Committee and the various city and county commissions on what’s happening.
Where all the fun happens is in the Community Coalition. The Truckee River Flood Management Community Coalition is comprised of anybody in the public sector who is interested in doing something for the Truckee River and coming up with a solution. We’ve had up to 375 people participate in Coalition meetings. We have another group called the Design and Environment Committee that does all the work. At the time we were selecting acceptable project elements, these people were meeting twice a week and going over reports from different committees to try and decide, “Is this something the community can live with or not?”
In addition to them, I show here [page 8 of Exhibit C] a Finance Committee and Public Information Committee. We developed other committees as problems arose that we wanted answers to, such as hydraulic modeling, hydrologic bottling, and water quality benefits. Any time we needed information like that, we set up a committee and used local people, along with recognized experts, who looked at the problem and came up with something that was acceptable to the community.
[Mr. Urban, continued] This gives you an idea of the key stakeholders involved in the project. We started off with about 25 key stakeholders. As time passes we keep adding stakeholders because, as people become more and more aware of the project, they come to us and say, “I never knew anything was happening here,” and we invite them to become stakeholders.
Assemblyman Marvel:
Will this encompass the areas like Spanish Springs, which had a lot of damage last year with flash flooding?
Paul Urban:
This particular project does not deal with Spanish Springs as far as the protection of Spanish Springs, although water that falls in Spanish Springs does come into the Truckee River.
Assemblyman Marvel:
It’s all part of the whole system and there’s a tremendous problem there.
Paul Urban:
Yes, there is, but, because of the way the one-eighth of one cent sales tax is structured, this particular project is dedicated to flooding on the Truckee River main stem.
Assemblyman Marvel:
Have you determined any plans about what you’re actually going to do on the ground or are you just going to have meetings?
Paul Urban:
Yes, we have some ideas of what we’re going to put on the ground. The idea behind having the meetings is that we want to make sure this isn’t a case of a large federal agency coming into town and saying, “Here’s what’s good for you.” We want this to be the community working together with the different state and federal agencies and local sponsors to come up with a plan that truly is acceptable to the community. Most projects go through a design and an environmental impact statement and then the fighting begins. We want to make sure we have public comment on all those things ahead of time so that can be incorporated into the design and studies. We work with the regulatory agencies up front so that we can handle them.
[Mr. Urban, continued] Here [at the top of page 10 of Exhibit C] is the area that was flooded in 1997. One of the ideas would be simply to contain that area with levees. That would provide protection but it would also do two other things: It would make the water rise to the highest so we would have the highest levee heights, and it would also send the most water downstream. Those were concerns. We also looked at providing detention basins, one at the UNR farms, one further upstream in the Huffaker Hills area, and one downstream at the Mustang Ranch. This would hold the most water in the Truckee Meadows and would have minimal to no impact downstream.
The Community Coalition came up with something that has in-between effects. In downtown Reno, the biggest problem is bridges and old floodwalls that need to be replaced. Some sections of the Truckee River need levees on both sides, but we want to set the levees back. Notice the area here [top photo, page 11 of Exhibit C] where the levees are up to 1,000 feet away from the river to allow this whole area to flood and provide storage during a flood. It also provides open space and recreational potential in times when there isn’t a flood. At the University farms, what becomes a real selling point is, we’re going to do benching along the channel so that the channel, instead of being rectangular, will have increased area as you go towards the top. It will send some water downstream, which will eliminate the need to have any levees around areas that are already developed, such as Rosewood Lakes and Hidden Valley. That has a number of benefits: We won’t have to try and put levees in people’s backyards, and all the natural drainage that would come into the area during a flood won’t be impounded by the levees. This will give us the least amount of levees and will also call for river restoration downstream to handle the impact.
To give you an idea of what we’re talking about with restoration, here’s an area along the Truckee River just downstream of Sparks [top photo on page 12 of Exhibit C] and what it looks like now. The plan would lengthen the river by adding sinuosity and allow the river to flood in its floodplain more often. We are also working with groups that have the same goal regarding river restoration, such as the Nature Conservancy. This is their plan for the McCarran Ranch. This is what the ranch looks like today [top photo, page 13 of Exhibit C] and here’s what it will look like when it’s restored [bottom photo, page 13 of Exhibit C]. All this extra vegetation and narrowing of the channel will provide great water quality benefits which are needed for the wastewater treatment plant. Our last example shows the Mustang Ranch before and after river restoration [top and bottom on page 14 of Exhibit C].
When is all this going to happen? We’ve been working on this since April 2000. We came up with these ideas in March 2000. Since March and into the fall of this past year, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the community have been doing various studies to look into the feasibility and impacts of all the different alternatives and features we looked at. We’re looking for a draft environmental impact statement in about December and a final environmental impact statement next spring. Since this is a Corps of Engineers’ project, it must go through the Corps’ process and have the Chief of the US Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, D.C., sign off on it. Once that happens, we can then go to Congress for authorization and funding.
[Mr. Urban, continued] That gets us to the project agreement. One of the reasons we’re asking for operation and maintenance money through the sales tax is because, in October 2004, we will be negotiating with the Corps on what’s called a Project Cooperation Agreement, basically, a cost-sharing agreement. The requirement the Corps has of all flood control projects is that the sponsors not only be able to show at the time of the agreement that they have the money to pay for the capital expenditures, but that they also have the ability and the funds to operate and maintain the project, because it simply does not make sense to develop a water project that you let waste away. That is why we are asking for the ability to use sales tax for operation and maintenance. We will probably be starting construction in 2005.
Assemblyman Marvel:
How much money will you raise?
Paul Urban:
Through the sales tax? I asked John Sherman, the Washoe County Finance Director, and he estimated costs for operation and maintenance, depending on the final design, of between $750,000 and $1 million a year. He put that through the finance model and determined that the sales tax will generate that. It’s one-eighth of one cent of the sales tax.
Chairman Parks:
Are there further questions for either of these gentlemen? [There were none.] Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak on S.B. 490?
Nicole Lamboley, Legislative Relations Program Manager, Office of the City Manager, City of Reno:
[Introduced herself.] S.B. 490 was amended based on concerns that the City of Reno initially had with the legislation as drafted. Subsection 2(c) on page 2 talks about the operation and maintenance dollars being restricted to the Truckee River Flood Control Project, and the Reno City Council wanted to make sure that these monies are dedicated to that flood control project. In working with the staff of both Sparks and Washoe County, we came up with this amendment, which allowed the City of Reno to support this piece of legislation. I have submitted a letter for the record [Exhibit D] that indicates our position on this bill.
Assemblyman Marvel:
Have you made provisions to keep the water out of the train trench?
Nicole Lamboley:
I believe the flood control project will do it.
Assemblyman Anderson:
Ms. Lamboley, where did you think the money was going to go? It looked like the first version of S.B. 490 accomplished pretty much the same thing. What other diversion did you see? What harm was it going to do?
Nicole Lamboley:
It was the concern of the Reno City Council that the bill was vague and that there might be other flood control projects the money could be put toward.
Assemblyman Anderson:
Reno already got what they wanted out of the initial legislation. Now they’re coming back to cause problems for the floodplain that would go through the city of Sparks? The purpose of this is to make sure that the industrial area in the city of Sparks doesn’t flood, but now the City of Reno has decided to get involved in this?
Nicole Lamboley:
No. This was a joint effort of all three entities, both the city councils of Reno and Sparks and the Washoe County Commission. We made sure that Sparks was in agreement. They were because they are concerned, too. They wanted to make sure that this money would be for the operation and maintenance of the Truckee River Flood Control Project, which is what was presented here today.
Chairman Parks:
Are there further questions? Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak on S.B. 490? Not seeing any response, we’ll close the hearing on this bill.
Is there anybody in the audience who would like to address the Taxation Committee?
Carole Vilardo:
I have a question for the Committee. The bills that are being processed to deal with taxes contain a number of issues that don’t deal with taxes such as oversight committees, funding recommendations, et cetera. Will you have time to hear those non-revenue provisions or should those of us who are concerned about some of those provisions submit our testimony in writing to the Committee?
Chairman Parks:
I think there will be a point where we will certainly take comment; however, it would be preferable to have written comments in front of us at that time. Any written comments would certainly be appreciated.
With nothing else to come before the Committee, we are adjourned [at 5:48 p.m.].
[Exhibit E was submitted by Ted Zuend at the close of the meeting. Also at the close of the meeting, Peter Krueger, Executive Director, Nevada Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association distributed a handout on behalf of the Association and Berry-Hinckley Industries regarding the gross receipts tax (Exhibit F), although Mr. Krueger did not speak.]
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
Terry Horgan
Transcribing Secretary
APPROVED BY:
Assemblyman David Parks, Chairman
DATE: