Nevada's legislative session is over while a special session could soon come to a close.

A look at what bills have passed and what was left behind, that's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

The biggest takeaways from this year's legislative session, we have a panel in studio to discuss that ahead.

But first to Carson City where the legislature has passed a bill providing the Oakland A's up to $380 million in public funding for the construction of a new stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.

Nevada Independent Reporter Sean Golonka joins us now.

And Sean, this bill originally died during the regular session, but Governor Joe Lombardo called a special session for it.

Lawmakers scoffed when the A's brought back the very same bill that didn't make it out of the regular session and then proceeded to make their own changes to it.

So let's go through those changes.

Which were the most important in your opinion?

(Sean Golonka) Right.

So I think kind of top of mind with lawmakers' concerns over the same bill being brought was the community benefits agreement.

We saw a similar thing with the Allegiant Stadium deal and the Raiders coming in where the team basically has to sign a community benefits agreement agreeing to make certain investments in the community.

So the latest changes to the Athletics bill were really all about putting some stricter requirements into that, some more teeth into it for oversight and making sure they're complying with those requirements.

-Could you give us some examples of what those requirements are?

-Right.

So one thing is diversity in workforce.

So making sure that the construction workers, stadium workers represent a diverse group of people.

Making sure that they're being paid a livable wage is a part of that as well.

Also certain cash investments.

So whenever the Oakland A's, or then the Las Vegas A's, are in Southern Nevada, they'll have to make contributions of at least $2 million annually into the community, whether that's donations to charities or even some kind of in-kind services of, you know, putting on things in the community and that sort of thing.

-Now, in addition to those community benefits, putting some teeth into those requirements, as you had said, this also resurrects two bills that Governor Lombardo had vetoed.

What are those bills that are now part of this?

-So those two bills had been vetoed earlier by Lombardo.

One of them, basically, makes sure that railroad and monorail projects comply with the state's prevailing wage laws.

So just kind of wage requirements on those types of projects.

We could see transportation like a monorail going to and from the A's stadium.

Even something like the Las Vegas Boring Company Loop is technically a monorail.

And then the other bill requires companies seeking tax abatements from the state to provide paid family and medical leave.

I think it's a rate of 55% of their regular wage for 12 weeks.

-So the inclusion of these two bills, does it make Governor Lombardo's signature on this bill any less likely?

-I don't think so.

I think that kind of stems from the negotiations between the Governor's office and Democratic leadership in the legislature.

He called this special session.

He's expressed support for this A's deal.

So clearly, you know, he wants the team in Southern Nevada.

And so I think Democratic leaders kind of understanding that he wanted that were able to get some of their own concessions from him with these vetoed bills being brought back in.

-Remind our viewers why Governor Lombardo wants this so bad.

-I think it's-- you know, it can be a jobs bill.

It's an economic investment.

Whenever his chief of staff Ben Kieckhefer presented the original bill during the regular session, now about a couple of weeks ago, he said he-- he thought it would be really an investment for the state; that ultimately it would bring more revenue into the state's general fund than if this investment were not made.

-And you also brought up negotiations that have been happening.

How have they been happening?

Because it hasn't quite been out in public.

-Right.

It's all, it's all behind the scenes.

The legislative process is not always the most transparent.

But something that we've seen just being on the ground in the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, we've seen them walking over across the Capitol yard to the Governor's office.

So they've been in there behind closed doors negotiating this, this through.

And that, that goes back all the way to the regular legislative session through both of the special sessions we've now been through.

-This is the way of business in Nevada.

Did you get any sense that this decision was made in haste?

Because lawmakers have expressed frustration having to stay past the regular session deadline.

-You know, I think that's a tough judgment to make.

They certainly grilled the A's officials.

I think they had lengthy meetings behind closed doors with folks like A's President Dave Kaval and Team Owner John Fisher, as well as the people who presented the bill, Economic Analyst Jeremy Aguero and the head of the Stadium Authority, Steve Hill.

You know, these these people were in communication with lawmakers, and they were sorting out these details of the community benefits agreement and of the amendments, you know, behind closed doors, but those conversations were happening.

-All right.

And as you have reported, there is a lot of work left for the A's to actually relocate to Las Vegas.

What comes next for them?

-Well, first they need approval from Major League Baseball owners to actually relocate from the city of Oakland.

And that's really the key step from getting out of there and moving to Vegas.

There's also the question of whether they'll have the relocation fee waived.

That could be-- I think the estimate was maybe 250, 300 million dollars.

Although MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has indicated that could or would be waived for the A's relocating to Las Vegas.

There are certain, I think, fees they have to pay to get out of that, that lease at the Oakland Coliseum.

They need to find a temporary home during the time of the construction of the stadium.

There's been talk of them playing potentially even at the Las Vegas Ballpark where the Aviators currently play.

So there's still a lot to figure out.

And that's even, you know, putting aside the agreements that they have to reach with the Stadium Authority.

They have to come up with $1.1 billion in private financing for this project, and that's from a team owner who has been reluctant to spend a lot on the team itself.

So we're waiting to see where that private capital comes from as well.

-All right.

A lot of hurdles remain.

Sean Golonka with The Nevada Independent, thank you for your time.

And here now to share their thoughts on the A's as well as the rest of Nevada's 2023 legislative session are Sondra Cosgrove, College of Southern Nevada History Professor and Executive Director of Vote Nevada, a nonprofit focused on nonpartisan civics education; also Michael Schaus, Libertarian Political Columnist and Founder of Schaus Creative; and Chris Giunchigliani, former Democratic State Assemblywoman and Clark County Commissioner.

Wow, you all have some long titles there.

[laughter] (Chris Guinchigliani) They don't pay well.

[laughter] -Let's talk about what has been a long legislative session.

You just heard from Sean Golonka of The Nevada Independent what's going on with the A's.

I want to hear quickly from each of you.

Would you have voted for this bill as it currently stands?

Sondra, I'll start with you.

(Sondra Cosgrove) Yes.

-You would.

What about you, Chris?

-Absolutely not.

-No.

And Michael?

(Michael Schaus) No.

-Well, let's go with why yes first.

-Looking at the people who lined up behind it.

And so you had a lot of the major casinos, you had the Resort Association, but you had many of the building trades.

You had culinary union.

When you've got that many people behind something, it's probably going to pass.

So it's, to me, let's get it passed and then make sure the things that are in it get implemented.

-Okay.

So you see both sides as being represented as wanting this both, I guess, the community aspect as well as the business aspect.

But what is she missing in either of your opinions?

-To me it's about public policy, and it's not a good policy, period.

So it doesn't matter to me who lines up or who doesn't, because that's where the lobbying and the political side comes in and interferes with what public policy should be.

So you can make an excuse if you've-- if I give you this, then you can vote for it.

But that's not a legit reason to violate the public policy, which comes down to do you take public taxpayer dollars and give it to a private person that's a billionaire, period.

-And is-- Okay.

-I was gonna say that's exactly right.

I think UC Berkeley once described it as "socializing the costs but privatizing the profits."

You've got a private entity that is benefiting from public tax dollars.

That doesn't really seem like that's gonna be in the interest of the public good, so to speak.

-Okay.

But then I would throw out the Raiders argument, the Raiders stadium, and look how much money it has brought and good it's done for the community.

But your response would be, Michael?

-Well, the Allegiant Stadium success, for example, is a good argument not to subsidize stadiums-- -Correct.

- --because that says there would have been plenty of private investments that could have made significantly more money.

And keep in mind taxpayers don't get a share of the revenue.

We go ahead and we put up the bonds.

We do all that.

The the actual economic development that happens are, again, private interests making money there, which they should be the ones to invest in it if they want to continue to do that.

-Sondra, would you vote yes for this because of the amendments that were made to it?

Which amendments specifically?

The community agreement?

-Yes.

And I'm a political realist, so I agree with anything you're saying.

But I also know how our legislature works, so why bang your head against the wall?

It's gonna pass.

But I did appreciate that the legislators went through the sausage making process and demanded things.

They didn't say, Okay, we're just going to roll over.

But if it's going to happen, then I'm going to expect a diverse workforce.

I'm going to expect investment into homelessness.

And to me, they did put up a really good fight and say, we know where this is going, because the powers that be are going to have this get passed.

We want to make sure that people get something.

-There-- -But there's no penalty.

I'm sorry.

There's no implementation.

You have a director who can come to the stadium board and say, we think we violated it.

But there's no penalty.

It's a "may" language, not a "shall" language.

And in the long run, I go back to what you're saying.

The Raiders stadium would have been built without our subsidy.

And you have to attribute to the fact that it's a premier event center, not just for football.

So they knew they were going to bring in other shows that were there that make it-- That's Vegas, baby, so no matter what.

So why do you need the taxpayer to have to subsidize a billionaire with one of the worst playing teams in the United States?

Sorry.

-Sondra, one of your arguments was you thought maybe Steve Hill of the LVCVA should have focused more on what other events outside of baseball could be brought.

-Right.

So if you-- if you listen to the economic forum meetings, and those are the commissioners that look at our tax revenue, and if you listen to what was being said about Allegiant since it got built, it's profitable because of people like Taylor Swift and BTS and all the other events that are there.

They don't really even talk about the football games.

And so I think Steve Hill, he had one slide where he kind of listed out medium-size events that could go into that stadium, but then they just moved on to something else.

Show me it pencils out with that, and I think more people would have been willing to say, well, that's what Allegiant stadium is doing, so I can see it would be profitable.

-But listen, we just won the Stanley Cup, and Mr. Foley was quoted as saying, I did this on my own without a government subsidy.

And he opposed the-- at that time, the Raiders subsidy that came in-- -And that is a good example of how you don't need to rely on public subsidies to build something like this.

T-Mobile Arena came up.

We had the Vegas Golden Knights within six years.

They win the Stanley Cup.

We have a world class hockey franchise here.

That all happened without going hat in hand to taxpayers.

I think that you're absolutely right.

This probably was going to happen anyway, and I will say that it's not as egregious as we all thought it was going to be when we first heard half a billion dollars and everything else.

It certainly has been negotiated down.

But it's still nonetheless, in principle, should be insulting to a lot of taxpayers who look around and say, hey, you know what?

$180 million we're giving in transferable tax credits can be spent much better in education or homelessness, mitigation efforts, or whatever you want to say.

-Mental health programs-- -Exactly.

- --which he vetoed.

-There are other ways.

-So you couldn't fund mental health programs or capping senior citizens' rent bases?

You vetoed those saying there wasn't enough money or it was the policy, but you can go ahead and give money away on that?

So we pick and choose.

It's cherry picking.

It really truly is.

They amended both in the Senate and the Assembly.

I appreciate that they listened and they tried to come up with-- That takes a lot of strength.

And I understand that part, but if it's bad public policy, you don't negotiate against yourself.

You say thank you very much, no.

Go build it, they will come.

-Is the State putting itself at risk in your opinion with this agreement?

-Yes.

This one's different than Raiders.

They're basically a cosigner.

And then they again mandated what the county has to do with the county not even having voted on it.

You will take these, these bonds that maybe you're allocating for road repair or for to build transitional housing or senior-- whatever it might have been used for.

Now that money is taken off the block.

And then they don't pay property tax for 30 years.

That's police, school, and fire.

-Sondra, you keep nodding your head.

-She's a realist.

-No, I agree with what they're saying.

But at the end of the day, the way we run our elections means you have to fund your campaign.

So you're going to go to the unions.

You're going to go to the casinos.

You're going to have to ask for those donations to be able to run in the way we run our election processes.

So you can look at all the public policies and you look at the people who write those checks for you, sitting at that table saying, vote for this, then that's what you're gonna do.

-And therefore, as a former legislator, that's when you tell them no.

-I think that's part of the reason why I-- I haven't seen all the polling on the issue, but I get the sense a lot of Nevadans are opposed to this.

I mean, the testimony was 85, 87% opposed.

And I think that that's exactly part of the reason why.

We know what this is.

This is a bunch of lawmakers talking to a bunch of lobbyists trying to figure out, hey, what can I give you and what can you give me so that way we can move this forward?

And that's all happening behind closed doors.

And that is a disturbing part of the process even beyond the handouts to private interests.

-As a former legislator, you have to be able to vote your conscience regardless.

No lobbyist makes me vote, period.

And any legislator says that is full of crap.

Okay?

They should be kicked out.

You made a decision, and you blame someone else for the decision that you made.

But as an elected, you made that decision.

That was your choice.

And if you don't believe it's the right thing to do, then you should say no, which is harder than saying yes more often than not.

And so I don't buy that.

I watched the hearings as best as I could.

I think the Senate-- Senator Neal brought up some excellent points, and Senator Scheibel.

I think that there was a lot of good interaction of trying to get people back to learning how to govern.

Governing is different than voting.

Governing is making sure that you know what your policy ranges are, who are you benefiting, where are-- where is your not only your dollars, but where is that public input coming from?

And if you can't vote your conscience, then you shouldn't be there.

-That's a lot to ask people who are in a part-time legislature that meets for 120 days.

-That's an excuse about part time.

It's about whether or not you are elected to do your duty and your duty as a public servant.

And "public servant" means you serve the public.

-Not to pick on all politicians, but it's also a big ask for politicians.

Look what's going on in the national stage.

You have the same incentives, the incentives of the political process being different than-- -The policy.

- --the governing process.

The incentives, yeah, they encourage folks to, if they are given an excuse-- -Can you clarify the difference between the political process and the governing process?

-The governing process is exactly what we were talking about, the policy, the idea of, do we want to give $180 million dollars in transferable tax credits?

Is that good policy?

The political aspect of it is, all right, if I do that, who's going to support me?

You know, I need to work with the Governor.

Okay.

If I support this for the Governor, then he's going to support me on this issue of mine.

And that is, I think, what frustrates a lot of people who just casually pay attention to this, is the politics tend to overwhelm the policy issues or the governing issues.

-I want to move on.

Let's talk about Governor Lombardo campaigning on being the next education governor.

He certainly got historic education funding through K-12 education funding.

According to his office, per pupil funding will be up by $2,500 next year.

However, his priorities in addition to funding were school choice and also school safety.

How well did he succeed in those areas?

Let's start with school choice, which as he has said, quote, Traditional public schools are not and should not be the only option.

So then what are the other options, and how did he go about getting funding for them, Michael?

-I mean, part of the driving idea behind school choice and reason it's been a reoccurring issue in the legislature for half a decade or more now is this idea that if you've got money, you do have school choice.

You can go move to a different part of town.

You can take some of your money and spend it on private tuition.

If you are of limited means, you don't have that same choice.

You don't have the financial means to send children to private school.

You don't have the financial means to move across town.

So it's a reoccurring issue that comes up every single year.

Obviously, the Governor was not really set up for success, simply because of the political realities of the current legislature.

But he certainly did push it, and he at least made it a conversation.

-Okay.

Your take on it, Chris?

-As a public school teacher of 30 years and one who-- again, I went to Catholic grade school as a kid.

That was my parent's choice.

We paid for it.

We didn't go to government and say give me money.

Public schools are what made America great, in my opinion.

And it's the opportunity for someone to learn no matter what your background is, where you come from, what your family's status is.

You can have choice by zoning and get rid of this debate of whether or not I take public tax dollars and give it to private or religious schools.

That's not-- that's undermining the public institution in a school system, period.

And so if you really want to get to school choice, in my opinion, you can do it through your whole zoning component where parents then have the opportunity and say, I like this program over here.

I'd like to go over to KO Knudson or, you know, whatever.

That aside, the Governor, I will applaud him.

They had flush money this time.

I never got to serve under flush money in my 16 years.

But they did have it, and I commend him for putting a good portion of it into K-12.

We have to say that.

And I commend the legislature for drawing the line in the sand, saying we're not funding the opportunity scholarships, which is another way to say private dollars.

Okay.

That said, the debate that happened more on the school safety was an interesting piece to me, because-- -Let me get Sondra's take first on the school choice and what was taken away from the Governor's omnibus education bill.

As you mentioned, opportunity scholarships funding is going to remain as is despite him wanting to significantly increase that amount of money.

-I think that's where people are misunderstanding what happened.

The opportunity scholarships go back to the 2015 legislative session.

They had a voucher program where school dollars came out of the distributive account for education and went with the student.

The Nevada Supreme Court said you can't do that because you can't take education dollars and fund religious schools.

But the opportunity scholarships, where a business can contribute and then deduct that from their taxes, they're saying that's not the same.

That is constitutional.

And so that's been funded since then.

It is still there.

It is still funded.

He wanted to go from $50 million to $500 million.

That came off the table.

-Well, currently, we're only at about $6 million or something.

So it was going to be substantial increase anyway.

To put that into perspective, though, we're talking about a few thousand kids.

And these are, again, as it's currently set up, it's only low income kids.

So businesses will make a donation to a private scholarship organization that then has to give it to a low income child.

And that is a program-- I totally understand the argument that we need to fund public schools.

And I think that was the 2 billion extra dollars that Governor Lombardo put forward.

The other part of it is we give financial assistance to folks all the time for necessary services that government could otherwise potentially do.

Why should education be any different, especially if it's an incentive program to fund scholarship organizations that will help low income kids?

And I was disappointed that we didn't have enough of a discussion about that in the legislature.

It was very much the legislative leadership said, this looks like school choice.

Let's not talk about it.

-What Governor Lombardo did get in that omnibus bill left in place, the potential for city and county sponsored charter schools, reinstated the Read by 3 program, included 140 million in funding for early childhood literacy, some potential funding for charter school transportation.

I mean, overall, Sondra, how would you describe how successful he was in school choice?

-He got something.

He needs to be able to tell his constituents he fought for something.

But Nevada is a ballot initiative state.

And during his State of the State address, he said, here's my priorities.

If the legislature would like to work with me, fine.

If not, then let the people decide.

And so there's a possibility that these things that came out of those bills, he probably said it's not worth it fighting over.

Maybe there's a legislator or a citizen that wanted to run it as a ballot question.

-Okay.

School safety.

He did get two bills passed which reform restorative justice practices, better enabling schools to suspend and expel students who commit violent acts.

As a former teacher yourself-- -I wrote the original habitual discipline law, which is part of what they were amending this time around.

And I was very careful.

As a former special ed teacher, age is a consideration.

And I hated even doing the age 11.

Now they can go down to 6.

Where is your programming?

Where is your placement?

What are you going to do with those kids?

I understand.

Much-- -They can now expel students as young as 6 years old.

-Yes.

They removed hearing processes.

It wasn't that big a modification.

But if you don't have a program for those kids to go in, then you're creating a future problem that's going to happen.

What are those parents going to do?

Where are-- We don't have enough mental health programs.

We don't have enough for behavioral.

As a former special ed teacher, I focused on children with emotional disturbance.

And so, yeah, they were physical.

You have to look at your disabled community.

I think the school districts have neglected special ed.

Now there's more money in there this time around.

They did complete disservice during COVID shutdown to many of these young people across the state.

So hopefully, the money that was put in there can come into some actual programming where you have counseling, you have psychologists, you have psychiatrists.

You have-- teach parents about 504 plans, you teach teachers about-- Half the faculty don't know how to handle and implement a behavioral plan for a special ed kid in their classroom.

And that's where we need to take a step back and say, what are we not doing that we have the ability to do that doesn't really cost money?

In your teacher training programs and your administrative training programs and your support personnel programs, come together as a faculty.

Okay, these 10 kids have a behavior plan.

How are we supposed to implement it?

If it's not implementable, the IEP can be reconvened and you can work out something that's better for the family as well as the children and still maintain safety on that campus.

-Michael, your response to reforming restorative justice practices?

-Well, I mean, I-- Especially following COVID, we had a lot of violent cases that were highly publicized.

That's gonna put a lot of parents on edge.

A lot of parents will say, wait a minute.

Something has to change.

I think that's probably the reason he was able to get this through, because it went even beyond the specifics of the bill.

Just the mentality, this overall feeling in the state that, is my kid safe at school?

That's a scary feeling for parents.

And I think a lot of Democrats and Republicans understood that feeling and said, okay, we have to take some sort of step forward.

This is the step that's put in front of us.

-Sondra?

-So this is why-- The bill that I was laser focused the whole time was AB37, which creates the Behavioral Health Workforce Center in the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Because we have known for many, many years, we just don't have enough providers.

There's not counselors, social workers, school psychologists.

And that's one of the reasons you can't implement a restorative justice plan, because all of those paraprofessionals have to be in the school supporting the teachers.

And so instead, the teachers just got told, Well, you figure out what to do.

We don't have any services.

-UNLV got rid of social workers, even as a programming, about 25 years ago.

So they weren't producing anybody.

Then they went, oops, we need social workers, and they reimplemented the programming.

That was only about 10 years ago, I think, that they funded it.

-Right.

Now we've got $2 million.

AB37 passed with $2 million to ensure it can't go away, that it's something that's a program.

And it will be at UNLV, but then it's going to reach out to the community colleges, to the rural areas.

And the ability to say in the rural areas, if you want to stay where you are, you can do distance learning and you can become a school psychologist.

-We have much more we could talk about.

We've run out of time.

Thank you.

-Really?

-We have.

That went fast.

-Very fast.

-Thank you for joining us.

We'll have you back.

There's a lot more we can go into this session, once it finally does officially wrap.

I'm getting the cue to wrap.

Thank you for joining us.

For any of the resources mentioned on this show, go to our website, vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

And lastly, a big congratulations to the Vegas Golden Knights on their Stanley Cup win.

I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪