More than 1,000 bills made their way through the 75th Nevada Legislative Session. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce was there from day one driving forward key policy improvements and fighting to defeat potentially-detrimental bills for the business community.
First and foremost, the Legislature enacted many of the reforms the Chamber has been advocating for over the past year. Senate Bill 427 that was passed revises provisions governing the Public Employees' Retirement System and the Public Employees' Benefits Program, and brings transparency and accountability to the collective bargaining process.
"Reforming PERS and PEBP is a great accomplishment for taxpayers and a victory for future generations," says Steve Hill, chairman of the Chamber's Board of Trustees. "The legislation reduces some of the long-term pressure on taxpayers and will reduce the state's unfunded liability for future public employees' benefits and eventually bring local government pay more in line with state employees and the private sector."
In addition to enacting meaningful reform, lawmakers also addressed the State's significant budget shortfall, enacting a plan that included cutting expenditures, and raising additional revenue primarily through increases in the Modified Business Tax (MBT) or payroll tax, increasing business license fees, sales tax and vehicle registration fees.
Included in this plan was a tax decrease for small businesses, achieved by lowering the MBT rate from 0.63 percent to 0.5 percent for the first $250,000 of payroll for all businesses. The Legislature estimates more than half of all Nevada businesses have payrolls of less than $250,000. The MBT will rise from 0.63 percent to 1.17 percent for every dollar of payroll in excess of $250,000.
In addition, the Chamber advocated on your behalf and help defeat many bills that would have harmed businesses.
- Played an important role in defeating AB 495, the trial lawyers' attempt to overturn Nevada's medical malpractice reform laws. Defeating this bill prevented a rise in medical insurance premiums and serious deterioration in the availability of high quality health care in Nevada, especially from doctors in high-risk specialties.
- Prevented a significant increase in workers' compensation premiums by preserving Nevada's privatized system and the use of administrative hearings and appeals as the sole remedy for disagreements between the parties.
- Defeated AB 511, which would have ended the provision of administrative fines and penalties as the sole remedies for violations of industrial insurance statutes by insurers and third-party administrators (and would have permitted lawsuits against insurers, TPA's, and self-insured companies). Employers would have been involved in a wave of expensive litigation, and premiums would have risen to reflect the costs.
- Defeated SB 366, which created the presumption that any injury claimed to have occurred at work, did occur at work. This bill would have led directly to a very substantial rise in workers' compensation medical costs and therefore premiums, as employees who were without health insurance, had relatively poor health insurance, or belonged to unions that were driven to reduce their health trust expenses, would be tempted to claim most injuries and illnesses as work-related. Employers would have been forced to go through lengthy hearings, appeals, and probably court battles to deny questionable claims. Under current law, the employee, if challenged, must prove that the injury occurred at work.
- Removed a provisions in the introduced version of AB 24 that would have made it much easier for claimants to reopen claims years after they had been closed and would likely have guaranteed the return of an injured employee to the job he or she had held at the time of the injury (despite the loss of thousands of positions in the economic recession).
- Defeated parts of SB 195 and AB 178 that would have overturned the prohibition on using non-physical factors to determine degree of impairment (with one exception), avoiding a possible explosion of questionable benefits, such as occurred in California in prior years.
- Prevented doctor-shopping by claimants who might simply have sought the answer they wanted (AB 178) to avoid returning to work.
- Reduced pressure for future tax increases to fund public sector payrolls by opposing AB 395 (which provided for a form of collective bargaining for state employees) and AB 130 (which would have collective bargaining for a metropolitan police force to be conducted only by the Sheriff.) The Governor vetoed both bills, and the Chamber's opposition provided some of the justification.
- The Chamber prevented a dramatic surge in business litigation expenses through successfully lobbying to sustain the Governor's veto of AB 22 which would have greatly increased the likelihood that businesses accused of deceptive trade practices would have been subject to litigation instead of the current mainly administrative process.
- Successfully lobbied to sustain the Governor's veto of AB 381, which would have significantly reduced the permissible use of arbitration in business contracts, resulting in far more reliance on costly litigation to resolve disputes.
- Reduced some of the pressure to raise taxes in future downturns by supporting the passage of AB 165, which enlarged the state's "rainy day fund."
For a full list of bills the Chamber fought on your behalf please visit www.lvchamber.com or contact the Government Affairs Department at 702.641.5822.
