Treasurer Zach Conine is being challenged in his re-election by Republican nominee, Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore.

As Nevada prepares to expend $6.7 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds over the next five years, state officials say they need help figuring out how to spend the money.

Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Monday that a pandemic-related grant program aimed at assisting small businesses and nonprofits has administered more than $100 million to nearly 9,400 Nevada businesses and organizations.

Trade groups representing property owners came out in strong opposition against the measure. Their opposition was summed up by Southern Nevada property manager Molly Hamrick, who said the bill would only serve to “keep landlords from providing a product in the marketplace that tenants desperately need.”

A major provision of the bill allows tenants to use a landlord’s refusal to accept rental assistance money as an affirmative defense in an eviction proceeding.

In 2017, the Legislature voted to create the state infrastructure bank, but lawmakers have never allocated funds to get the bank off of the ground. Gov. Steve Sisolak is looking to change that.

Assemblywoman Sarah Peters’ (D-Reno) ability to share her sexual orientation on the floor of the Legislature without immediate political or social repercussions is not an overnight shift, but rather a product of decades of advocacy and legislation, LGBTQ advocates and lawmakers say.

In this edition: Is this the session lawmakers find a funding solution for the Millennium Scholarship? (No). Plus, it’s another deadline day, the future of Read by 3, building trades back Innovation Zones, major changes to a mental health hotline bill for first responders and details on an affordable housing campaign backed by the home builders.

In this edition: A bill on “Stablecoin” that is totally not related to Innovation Zones, increasing utility regulator fines, changes to wrongful conviction compensation and heartburn on abolishing education-focused commissions, including one created by beloved former Assemblyman Tyron Thompson.

In this edition: We track campaign contributions from Blockchains LLC, including to a PAC run by Treasurer Zach Conine. Capitol Police are also severely understaffed, and the “death with dignity” bill is back after falling short in 2019.

Gov. Steve Sisolak signed a bill Friday morning that provides an additional $50 million for small businesses struggling in the pandemic.

State lawmakers are moving quickly to process a bill that would provide an additional $50 million for a pandemic-related grant program aimed at small businesses and nonprofits, holding a hearing and unanimously voting the measure out of the Assembly on Wednesday.

The PETS program offered broad eligibility, and in the four days the program was open for applications, the state received more than 13,500 submissions — about 10 times the amount the rent program received.

During a Friday meeting of the Interim Finance Committee, a body composed of legislators that make budget and fiscal decisions when the Legislature is not in session, lawmakers signed off on the plan recommended by Gov. Steve Sisolak’s budget office to allocate remaining federal dollars largely to salaries and equipment costs that have played a role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did extend the eviction moratorium until the end of the calendar year — beyond the state’s moratorium ending Oct. 14 — the state’s rental assistance program continues to trickle out funds relatively slowly.

Federal coronavirus relief funds must be spent by the end of the calendar year, and commercial rental help is not the only program with a relatively low disbursement rate. Less than 10 percent of the $70 million Nevada applied to tenant rental assistance has been distributed about halfway through the program’s existence.

Mom-and-pop landlords say they’re being unfairly harmed by policies protecting tenants while leaving owners on a financial cliff. Some have fallen behind on mortgages or are chewing through their savings to keep afloat.

Nevada Treasurer Zach Conine revealed details about the new program he’s helping lead in an interview Monday with The Nevada Independent. The relief fund comes as Nevada eases out of a complete moratorium on evictions enacted in late March after non-essential businesses were ordered to close, and as evictions for non-payment of residential rent are expected to resume by September.

With the number of coronavirus cases in the Silver State on the rise, The Nevada Independent will be keeping you up to date on the latest here.

Several states have attempted such a feat, but if successful, Nevada would be the first state to apply closed-loop technology to legal marijuana markets that are unable to freely participate in banking because marijuana is a federally illegal controlled substance and banking is intimately tied to the federal government.