Budget
A how-to guide for budget reform: Part II
An outline of the BFO process
The Budgeting for Outcomes approach to state finances would help Nevada lawmakers adequately address the state's challenges.
A how-to guide for budget reform: Part 1
Correcting the process will yield better results
Nevada lawmakers, when seeking to assemble state budgets, regularly use an approach that is entirely wrong for the task.
What pensions ‘cost’ and what they really cost
PERS is dramatically understating its liabilities
The Nevada Public Employees' Retirement System is in bigger trouble than it wants to admit.
Band-aids don’t fix broken bones
Special session’s budget issues will resonate in 2011
Nevada's recent special session was full of temporary fixes, so the state's budget issues will dominate the 2011 session.
Optimism not productive in accounting
PERS’ generous accounting assumptions could spell trouble
Nevada's PERS liability is likely much higher than $9.1 billion.
What could have been
What if Nevada had shown some restraint in education spending?
Incremental tax increases and "broader" taxes over the years paid for a hyperinflation in public education spending, but to what end? Educational achievement is not better. In some ways, it's actually worse.
Could PERS be a silver bullet?
Meaningful reform could help avert fiscal crisis
Nevada needs a defined-contribution pension system.
Rhetoric versus reality
On education spending, they’re telling you more is less
The K-12 education establishment is trying to pretend that a $200 million funding increase is a devastating cut.
The magical language of special session
Repeated mischaracterizations have distorted public perception
Nevada legislators habitually adopt an entirely new language when they meet for special sessions.
Wait … you say there’s a recession?
Previously insulated public employees now feeling shock
While private-sector workers have suffered through the recession, their public-sector counterparts have been raking it in.
