With the election of Democratic majorities in both the state Assembly and Senate, many fear that, as Yogi Berra once said, it’s going to be deja vu all over again.
The 2019 session of the Legislature could resurrect many of the bills that Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed in 2017 — 41 in all, and he is considered a moderate Republican — because this time around the governor wielding the veto pen, or not, will be Democrat Steve Sisolak.
Take 2017’s Assembly Bill 154, which was sponsored by a raft of Democrats. But for Sandoval’s veto, the bill would have rolled back the minor headway made just two years earlier to cut the cost of public works. It would raise the cost of construction of university and public school buildings by reimposing the so-called prevailing wage on more projects.
Prevailing wage laws require that workers on public construction jobs to be paid no less than the “prevailing” wage in the area where the work is being done. The wage rate is set by the state Labor Commissioner based on a survey of contractors. The survey is so time consuming that in reality only union shops bother to comply, meaning the prevailing wage is the highest union wage.
In 2000, a study by the Las Vegas newspaper found the prevailing wage law cost taxpayers about $2.3 million extra on every new public high school being built in Clark County.
Then there is Senate Bill 106, which would have raised the minimum wage employers must pay workers. Currently the minimum is $7.25 and hour for workers whose benefits include health insurance and $8.25 for those who do not.
SB106 would have raised that by 75 cents a year until it reached $11 an hour for the insured and $12 for the uninsured. Sisolak has supported incremental increases in the minimum wage, though study after study has shown such requirements eliminate jobs and cause reduced hours for the remaining workers.
A 2017 University of Washington study of Seattle’s minimum wage, which was raised to $13 an hour, found the increase boosted hourly earnings in the jobs affected by a paltry 3 percent, and reduced hours worked by 9 percent. They also found the city would have had 5,000 more jobs if the minimum wages had not been increased.
Assembly Bill 374 from 2017 would have allowed any Nevadan to purchase Medicaid-like health insurance through the state exchange even if they are not eligible for Medicaid. In his veto message Sandoval said the measure would have created uncertainty in an already fragile health care market. He said the bill could have caused longer waits for care and fewer available doctors.
Senate Bill 196 would have required employers with at least 25 employees to provide workers with paid sick leave. Sandoval expressed concerns about the impact on small businesses.
Senate Bill 384 would have done legislatively what the Nevada Public Employees’ Retirement System has been trying unsuccessfully to get the courts to do for years. It would have declared all information about state and local government retirees confidential under the law.
Just this past month the Nevada Supreme Court, in a case brought by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, declared the names and pension amounts of retired public employees are indeed public records under the current law.
Nevada’s public employee pensions are the richest in the nation — $64,000 a year or more than $1.3 million in lifetime benefits, and that doesn’t include public-safety workers, such as firefighters and police, who can retire earlier and generally have higher salaries, especially in Nevada. Compare this to the average annual Social Security benefit of $16,000.
According to NPRI’s transparentnevada.com, in 2015 there were more than 1,500 Nevada state and local retirees receiving annual pensions in excess of $100,000. A revival of SB384 would keep that a secret from those whose taxes cover the expense.
Keep your eyes on this upcoming session in Carson City. It could bode very poorly for employers, workers and taxpayers.
A version of this column appeared this week in many of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel and the Lincoln County Record — and the Elko Daily Free Press.
Nevada Legislature building (R-J pix)
4TH ST8 
Don’t all sessions result in awful bills?
True, but sometimes they get vetoed.
The Seattle study on the impact of a minimum wage increase was somewhat unique, because most other studies contradict its findings. Once again, the editorialist cherry picks the data. The University of California did a study on the first six large cities to raise the minimum wage (not a single city, such as the Seattle study), and found, “Overall, we find that (the policies are) working as intended. Thus far, they’re raising the earnings of low-wage workers without causing disruption in the labor market”, and, “Allegretto adds that she was not surprised by the findings, since they are in line with other research on minimum wage. The results, however, differ from those of a 2017 University of Washington study, which indicated that Seattle’s increased minimum wage had harmed employment in the state.” https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2018-09-07/minimum-wage-increases-didnt-impact-jobs-in-6-us-cities-study-shows
Also of interest, “…other recent minimum-wage papers have underscored the limitations of the Seattle study. Chief among those newer papers is a large analysis of the effects of minimum-wage increases that have occurred since 1979. That paper, co-written by Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts, was recently presented at the American Economic Association’s annual conference.
Dube’s paper is more in line with conventional economic thinking: On average, minimum-wage increases eliminated jobs paying below the new minimum, but added jobs paying at or above the new minimum. The two changes effectively cancel each other out.”
It is wiser to examine the data first and then come to a conclusion. Unfortunately, most of us, including myself on occasion, choose a position and then search exclusively for those sources that agree with us, instantly rejecting all others.
Oops, forgot to proofread. My source for the bottom quote: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/05/raising-the-minimum-wage-doesnt-cost-jobs-multiple-studies-suggest/?utm_term=.b26dabba9a6c
I do agree that some of the other proposed bills could be damaging, especially the one requiring paid sick leave. In my own business, I make up for my no sick leave policy by paying my employees well in the first place, but I am against paid sick leave because it rewards the least conscientious employees and penalizes the better ones.
The prevailing wage law isn’t very useful because it targets this perk on only a select group of workers, while completely failing to address others that may be much lower paid.
Having to broadcast all of my employees’ wages would likely cripple my employee morale and therefore, the business. I kind of hate to see the government crippled in this way, and then have Conservatives gripe about how poorly run government is, while the efforts of Conservatives are part of the cause.