Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

We begin in Carson City where Nevada's 82nd Legislative Session will soon come to a close on June 5.

So will the Athletics get their stadium funding bill passed in time for that?

We bring in Nevada Independent Reporter Sean Golonka.

And, Sean, we will get to the A's; but, first, there were some negotiations overnight between Wednesday and Thursday.

What happened, and how much sleep have you gotten?

(Sean Golonka) Very little sleep, Amber.

The Capitol Press Corps was at the Capitol around midnight to watch Governor Joe Lombardo sign a pair of the five major budget bills that are basically used to fund our state government over the next two years.

And that came after hours of negotiations on Wednesday between Democratic leadership in the legislature and the Governor.

Basically, lawmakers moved forward a couple of high profile school safety bills in order to get the Governor's signature on those couple budget bills.

-Okay, so what did the budget bills entail?

-So one of those budget bills is the K-12 Education Funding Bill.

It's the largest education funding bill in state history, basically boosting K-12 education funding to a record high in state history.

And the other one is colloquially known as the Authorizations Act.

It basically authorizes federal spending for things like Medicaid.

-Okay.

And as you had mentioned, the Governor had threatened to veto these state budget bills if he hadn't gotten his priorities addressed.

So in exchange, he got a couple of school safety bills passed.

What do those include?

-So those basically reverse some of the restorative justice policies that the legislature had passed in 2019.

Lombardo campaigned on this in 2022, basically talking about a rise in violence in our schools, especially in Clark County.

We've seen attacks on teachers.

And so this is going to put some extra teeth into state laws allowing for school discipline, basically, and trying to amp up that school safety and keep teachers safe and students as well.

-Yeah.

So overhauling the restorative justice measures which provided alternatives to expulsion and suspension, with an end goal of decreasing the number of students that end up in the criminal court system.

As you mentioned, three more budget bills have to go before the Governor.

He either signs or vetoes them, or they become law.

I encourage our viewers to follow your reporting for updates on that.

But let's go to the A's bill now.

The A's owner, John Fisher, doesn't make a lot of appearances.

But he was actually at the state legislature on Wednesday, along with the team president, lobbying for up to $380 million in public funding for a 1.5 billion dollar stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.

What kind of impact did their presence make, if any?

-You know, I think it was a subtle impact publicly.

Certainly, they were moving around the building, going to different lawmakers, and probably whipping votes on the bill, you know, just trying to talk to folks about what they're seeking in Las Vegas.

And so they weren't present for the bill's initial hearing earlier this week, but they did come into the building to talk directly to lawmakers and kind of sell them on this idea.

-And broadly, Sean, what do you think the A's chances are of getting this bill through in time?

-That's a difficult question, Amber.

You know, I'll say the Governor is supportive of this.

But on the flip side of that, we see some key Democratic lawmakers, including Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, who chairs the powerful Assembly Ways and Means Committee, which this bill will have to pass through.

And she said she is a "Hell no" on the bill earlier this week.

And so the A's are going to be working to get her on their side.

-What would be her reasoning for hell no?

-I think that the public funding aspect of this, right?

So the bill caps public funding for the stadium at $380 million.

And so that's a lot of money to invest in the stadium that might otherwise be able to go to government services.

You know, that's state funds that could be spent on health care or housing, county funds that could go to similar services.

And so it's really a question of where do you want that money to go, and that's kind of being settled in the legislature right now.

-Yeah.

And that $380 million would be a combination of transferable tax credits and public bonds.

Let's move now to another big appearance at the legislature, and that was new Las Vegas resident and actor, Mark Wahlberg.

He was there in support of the Film Tax Credit Program, a massive expansion of it.

Did he have anything interesting to say, anything substantial?

-Yeah, right.

The second big Hollywood actor to come to the legislature in the past couple of weeks.

Jeremy Renner was here recently too.

And Mark Wahlberg basically came up to show his support for the bill, kind of talk about the vision for Hollywood 2.0 in Las Vegas.

And so I think he really just emphasized that, that he thinks this is a program that will help build out the film industry in Vegas, and he sees a strong talent pool for the industry in Vegas.

And he's supportive of that.

-So where does this bill stand now?

I mean, Monday, June 5, is the end of the session.

-Right.

This is-- It's really up in the air.

Yesterday my colleagues and I spoke with Lombardo's Chief of Staff, Ben Kieckhefer.

And he talked about how the general fund liabilities of this bill are unlike anything we've ever seen.

You know, $190 million in annual tax credits is really a significant chunk of money to basically take out of the state budget, like I said with the A's bill, could otherwise be going to other government services like education.

And so even though Democratic lawmakers, I think, are pushing this bill forward, there's still a lot of discussion about amendments.

And we just don't know where the Governor really stands on it.

-And this could possibly bring Sony films to Southern Nevada.

As you've reported, this has been in the works for a couple of years.

Why was it introduced so late in the session?

-I think it was just kind of, you know, bringing everyone on board, working out all the pieces.

This is not uncommon in the Nevada legislature, where we see really big policies introduced so late in the session.

Take the Oakland Athletics' stadium deal bill, for example, that was introduced, you know, in the couple final weeks of the session.

And so it just tends to be how our lawmakers work with these things, it seems.

-Why is that common here do you think?

-I think, you know, for one, they're working on the budget for a lot of the session.

And so they're kind of getting an idea of what money do we even have to spend on something like tax credits for the film industry or tax credits for the A's.

And I think also this, this legislature has some issues with transparency.

They're not subject to the Open Meeting Law like many other public bodies in Nevada, and so sometimes it's just difficult to know what's going on behind the scenes here at the legislature.

-And to your point, I think people felt the same way when they heard there was going to be the hearing about the A's bill on Monday, which was Memorial Day.

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