The replaced leaders oversaw the agencies responsible for veterans services, public works and human resources in Nevada.

The announcement said the transition from Chief of Staff Ben Kieckhefer, a former state senator, to Cherry will take place in early 2024, and Cherry’s first day in office will be Jan. 17. 

Vassiliadis described Aguero’s work with state government as similar to a “monopoly” — but “not because someone else can't do it, because someone else hasn’t.”

A new actuarial study commissioned by an anti-public option organization says the Silver State’s public health insurance option law could exacerbate Nevada’s existing health care provider shortage and reduce access to care.

The top-five nonpartisan open primary process does not violate the First Amendment protection of freedom of association, and private political parties and organizations remain free to endorse or promote any particular candidate they wish.

Last week, Gov. Joe Lombardo departed Nevada for a trip to Texas and a trade mission in Canada. Soon after, on Monday, Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony left the Silver State for a trip promoting Nevada tourism in Mexico. 

While the so-called crisis was averted, advocates say the cycle may be repeated next year unless state leaders work to improve the school choice program, including by allocating more funding to the program. 

Gov. Joe Lombardo announced late Friday that AAA Scholarship Foundation has "volunteered to utilize reserve funds to ensure that no students who qualify under Nevada law lose access to their scholarship this year."

In the last eight years, those Opportunity Scholarships, a needs-based scholarship program for low- and certain middle-income families to attend private or religious schools, have become a reliable political football, kicked up every two years as its funding mechanism again becomes one of many chips in eleventh-hour legislative negotiations. 

Speaking at a news conference early Wednesday in Las Vegas, Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) urged district and union negotiators to “seize [the] opportunity” provided by billions in new state education funding.

“The fact that anyone in [Nevada] gave them a dime when the team has literally nowhere else to go is the worst bargaining in the world,” Matheson said. “Quite honestly, I would have just squeezed them …  It's not about being friendly to the A's, it's about looking out for the taxpayer.”

Despite Lombardo’s threats to veto the state budget if his legislative priorities were not addressed, he signed three of the five major bills used to fund the state government through Thursday afternoon.

The bill (AB522) includes the first major pay boosts for state workers in years, including raises ranging from 10 percent to 13 percent in the upcoming fiscal year beginning in June, and 4 percent raises the following year.

On Wednesday, lawmakers heard and voted to advance a bill that would appropriate $64.5 million to replace the Owyhee Combined School on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in northeastern Nevada.

The agreement follows days of heated negotiations after Lombardo threatened multiple times to veto the state’s budget bills as his legislative priorities remained stalled.

“It's not our goal to veto that budget,” Gov. Joe Lombardo’s Chief of Staff Ben Kieckhefer told The Nevada Independent. “Our goal is to get the governor's priorities moving.”

Oakland A’s owner John Fisher and team president Dave Kaval spent much of Wednesday in the Nevada Legislative Building.

During the more than five-hour hearing on SB509, backers of the deal focused on the nuts and bolts of the legislation. But those proponents faced pushback from lawmakers.

In the face of the governor’s veto threat, Democratic lawmakers quickly moved the five major bills used to implement the state budget through the Legislature, seeking to get a budget approved, a chief responsibility of the lawmaking body, just days before sine die.

Under Gov. Joe Lombardo’s proposal, the most significant portion of funding, nearly 44 percent of the state budget, is allocated to the Department of Health and Human Services.