Lawmakers lay out economic development plan

Singing "Kumbayah," the governor and lawmakers of both parties Monday laid out a plan to revamp Nevada's economic development agencies.

Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, said Assembly Bill 449 would "shift the way we do business, coordinate all the efforts of all the development agencies out there."

Gov. Brian Sandoval told the joint Senate Finance/Assembly Ways and Means committees the bill fits within his plans to strengthen economic development efforts and delivers on the promise to make the economic development chief a cabinet level position in his administration.

Pointing to the bipartisan cooperation between the executive and legislative branches in developing the plan, Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said AB449 is an example of how they should approach all issues this session.

"We need to develop a true business plan model for economic development in this state," he said.

The plan would create an advisory board structure overseeing all economic development efforts and managing a system that awards grants to not only existing economic development agencies but three new regional agencies - one for Washoe, one for Clark and one for the rural counties.

Oceguera said those agencies would be awarded grants on a competitive basis depending on the quality of the programs they present to the state. He and the others denied that would mean an end to funding for groups such as the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada and Northern Nevada Development Authority, saying they would just have to compete for the money.

Oceguera conceded that the competitive grant system could mean in some years, one or more of those development agencies might get little if any grant money. Horsford, however, said continuing to make fixed amount awards in different agencies around the state hasn't produced the results Nevada needs to see.

Proponents denied rural areas without the means to hire grant writing experts would be at a disadvantage. They said because those areas already provide local government funding they would not be hurt by the plan.

Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka said he envisions rural areas working together on projects to compete.

"But if you've just got a sign in the door saying economic development, you're probably not going to get this money," he said. "There have been economic development grants that have just gone out year after year."

Sandoval's chief of staff Heidi Gansert said the governor is so committed to economic development that it's one of the very few places where he added funding despite the sweeping budget cuts elsewhere.

But even as they presented the 125-page bill, they brought with them a 78-page amendment changing numerous details within the plan.

Among those changes was finding another source of revenue to feed the university system for its part in developing educational programs that support and feed economic development. The original bill took that money off the top of their state funding. The new plan apparently is to rely on unclaimed property receipts for the $8-9 million. That, however, would still hurt the university which relies on those revenues to help support the Millennium Scholarship program.

Oceguera and other members of leadership said they are also expecting new revenue projections to give them a bit more money to spend on these kinds of programs.

Horsford told the committee they have set an aggressive timetable to get the new economic development program up and running by December - including the hiring of a world-class director to run it.

The program would be overseen by an advisory board consisting of the governor and lieutenant governor, legislative leadership and the secretary of state, who has a $300,000 grant to kick off the program with a "baseline study."