sales tax

The Carson City Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal to operate the Arlington Square Ice Rink for another season at the board's Oct. 7 meeting.

According to the staff summary, "This request is to expend $192,730 from the General Fund to support the operations of the Arlington Square Ice Rink for the 2010-2011 season. Staff is estimating that the ice skating rink will bring in $86,475; therefore the net subsidy will be $106,255."

By Nevada News Bureau staff
CARSON CITY – The head of Nevada’s Retail Association says a tax increase will likely be needed to balance the state budget next year, and expanding the sales tax to include at least some services is one place to look.

The developer of the Carson City Center/Nugget Project tonight presented an update on the progress made so far on a final plan to present to the city for approval.

The meeting of the Nugget Project Advisory Committee was supposed to see the final plans tonight, but those plans have been delayed by legal and financial issues, according to City Manager Larry Werner.

What they did get was an overview of where the project stands right now, along with a look at some numbers that could determine its feasibility.

The yet-to-be-completed plans for the Carson City Center aka Nugget Project may not be voted on by the Carson City Board of Supervisors until after the beginning of the new year, according to City Manager Larry Werner.

Werner said there will be a status update presented to the citizens committee on Sept. 27. Another committee meeting will be scheduled once the plans are finalized, Werner said. The presentation of the full plans had already been delayed twice before, adding two months to the original timeline.

Assemblyman John Hambrick this week said he will vie for chairmanship of the Republican Assembly Caucus against sitting chairman Pete Goicoechea if he wins reelection in November. He also expressed concerns about what he characterized as an abuse of power by some in Democratic leadership in Carson City.

Carson City Manager Larry Werner told the Board of Supervisors today that they are hoping to wrap up work on cost estimates for the city's portion of the Nugget Project by the end of the day.

Werner said that these cost estimates would determine if they had a feasible project or not, compared with the funding that would be provided by a 1/8 cent sales tax increase and tax increment financing.

He told the board that the results would be presented to the citizen's committee, whose next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 27.

Carson Nugget president Steve Neighbors was on hand to discuss some of the details of the Carson City Center aka Nugget Project at the Nevada Business Connections breakfast this morning at the Gold Dust West.

(You can read all the background materials on the project here. )

Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Nevada state agencies and public education have submitted budgets calling for nearly $8 billion in spending for the upcoming two years, about $3 billion more than what is expected to be available with current tax revenues.

There is an interesting discussion going on over at the Nevada Appeal site concerning the Nugget Project.

The story begins two week ago when Guy Farmer wrote a rather harsh column that slammed the Nugget Project. In response, last week there was a guest column by Michael Douglass criticizing Farmer's take on the subject.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Nevada budget guru Guy Hobbs said Wednesday expanding the sales tax to encompass services is “not a bad place to start� in the effort to broaden the state’s tax base.
“Sixty percent of our economy is services, not a bad place to start,� he said. “A lot of those services are discretionary services, certainly not a bad place to start.�

It's a bit of a challenge to follow the story out today about what's happening with the Carson City Center/Nugget Project.

It starts out saying that Nugget President Steve Neighbors is "encouraged" by the response from the governor's office, after meeting with them to discuss their concerns about the state's role in the project. Those concerns were expressed in a letter from the governor's Deputy Chief of Staff Lynn Hettrick last month.

But later on in today's story, Hettrick said the same issues about providing sufficient space for the Department of Health and Human Services and parking remain. I detailed how this affects the project here, and ran the numbers to show how the state office component of the plan doesn't pencil out.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea said today Nevada voters should be asked to expand the state sales tax to include food purchases as a way to raise revenue and broaden the tax base.
But any such revenue hike should be accompanied by a reduction in the state’s regressive business taxes, he said.

CARSON CITY – Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce President Matt Crosson said Thursday the Nevada business community will not accept tax increases in the upcoming 2011 legislative session without “meaningful� reforms in a number of areas including taxes, education and public employee benefits.

Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Democrat gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid told the Nevada News Bureau yesterday there are other options for moving the state out of its current budget crisis besides increasing taxes and cutting programs.

Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Nevada could find a way out of its $3 billion revenue shortfall next year without raising taxes, but only if the Legislature looks at restructuring the way the state and local governments provide and pay for services, the state’s top fiscal officer said yesterday.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – State Budget Director Andrew Clinger yesterday painted a bleak picture of Nevada’s next two-year spending plan, saying under current tax and spending levels every single program and agency except for education would have to be eliminated to balance the budget.

If you have taken part in the events going on in downtown Carson City this summer — such as the Friday night concerts on 3rd Street or the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings — then you have witnessed the Curry Street Promenade in action.

Though most would agree that the events are a great benefit for our downtown, the process by which this project came about is a strange one, tainted with managerial missteps, missing budgets and political indifference.

CARSON CITY – A sign that Nevada may have finally hit bottom in the national recession emerged today when the Department of Taxation reported an increase in taxable sales in April – the first in 20 months.
Statewide taxable sales totaled $3.3 billion in April, up 2 percent over April of 2009. But for the 10 months of fiscal year 2010, taxable sales are down 11.9 percent over the same period in the prior fiscal year.

The community is invited to attend an information open house regarding the proposed Carson City Center Project, also known as the Nugget Economic Development Project, on June 30 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Community Center’s front lobby.

CARSON CITY – A delay in federal payments to Nevada’s counties is not anticipated to cause any financial problems for the cash-strapped local governments, officials said in interviews last week.

I was gone for part of last week, and I missed that the new Michael Hohl Honda and Subaru auto dealerships on South Carson opened up on Monday. Looks like the Nevada Appeal missed it as well, at least as far as their website is concerned. Hopefully the addition will add some new sales tax revenue to Carson City's coffers.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors turned down a request by Supervisor Pete Livermore to put a question tied to the Nugget Project on November's ballot.

All of Livermore's fellow supervisors voted against putting an advisory question on the ballot concerning the 1/8th cent sales tax increase that would be needed to fund the yet-to-be-approved Carson City Center/Nugget Project.

Supervisor Molly Walt called the question premature since they will not know if the project is feasible until the project developer comes back with a proposal this summer.

I sent an email to all of the members of the Carson City Board of Supervisors for their reaction to the initiative petition filed on Friday to put the Nugget Project to a vote in 2012.

We now have responses from the four supervisors, and I just added Mayor Bob Crowell's comment below.

An initiative petition has been filed with the city clerk to put the Carson City Center Project, AKA Nugget Project, on the ballot in 2012.

The petition asks, "The proposed 1/8 cent sales tax increase for the proposed Carson City Center Project (formerly known as the Nugget Project) shall be placed on the 2012 general election ballot for a vote of the people." Copies of the paperwork are attached below.

CARSON CITY – A proposal to simplify, broaden and stabilize Nevada’s tax base by expanding and reducing the sales tax to include services from haircuts to legal advice is generating some support and plenty of questions from lawmakers and interest groups.

Tensions quickly arose during a discussion on the economic effects of illegal immigration at a town hall forum in Reno yesterday.
The keynote speaker, Dr. Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, said that immigration – both legal and illegal – creates a “fiscal drain� on public services that is significantly larger than the “miniscule� effect that they have on the per capita income of the nation.

CARSON CITY – A member of the citizen’s panel appointed by lawmakers to chart Nevada’s future for the next 20 years expressed concern today about whether the process to be followed to complete the effort conforms to meet the requirements of the state Open Meeting Law.

The Nevada Appeal has a good poll question about the Nugget Project, so we recreated the question here. Since this is probably the closest thing we are going to get to a public vote, go vote on our question, and then go over to the Appeal and vote on theirs.

In the waning hours of the special session this past February, legislators hurriedly introduced and passed Senate Bill 5, a bill intended, among other things, to remove the sunset on part of a half-percent sales tax passed in 2003.

Legislators this week voiced objections to the passage of Senate Bill 5 during the 2010 special session, which lifted the sunset on a temporary sales tax increase that was passed by voters in 2002.