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| C+ | Nevada |
• Population (rank): 2,495,529 (35)
• Average per capita income (rank): $26,340 (16)
• Total state spending (rank): $10,341,683,000 (36)
• Spending per capita (rank): $4,144 (47)
• Governor: Jim Gibbons (R)
• First elected: 11/2006
• Senate: 21 members: 10 D, 11 R
• Term limits: 12 years (lifetime)
• House: 42 members: 27 D, 15 R
• Term limits: 12 years (lifetime)
Nevada has been the nation's fastest-growing state for much of the past decade, and despite current hard times brought on by the housing-market collapse, population growth isn't expected to drop off anytime soon.
This swift growth is straining much of state government, notably an overburdened social-services system. Difficulty in hiring new employees for a variety of positions, such as nurses and correctional officers, has become increasingly troublesome. Last year, the legislature approved the hiring of additional social workers to reduce caseloads — a commendable effort. But the Department of Health and Human Services has been able to fill only one-third of the jobs.
Personnel Director Todd Rich points to a number of reasons positions go unfilled. Much of the need for new personnel is in the booming Las Vegas area, where the applicant pool tends to be less educated. Nevada's compensation philosophy compounds the issue. Not only is the state uncompetitive with private employers; it also lags behind city and county government. "That puts us in a tough spot," Rich says. "We're structured to appeal to people who want to be in a job for 30 years. That just doesn't happen anymore. We need to be more flexible and appeal to a younger crowd."
Nevada might have forecast some of its problems with better analysis. But workforce planning has been ad hoc and reactive at best. The absence of succession plans is becoming increasingly evident as top managers retire and employees are promoted without the training or experience they need. "We have a policy I refer to affectionately as 'promote and pray,'" says Corrections Director Howard Skolnik. More central guidance is in the works: Among Rich's priorities are developing a succession-planning model for agencies and crafting a statewide workforce plan.
The state's workforce issues will be all the tougher given growing fiscal pressures. Because of the housing slowdown, Nevada had to close a sizable budget hole for the current biennium; within months, the shortfall had grown to $540 million. Governor Jim Gibbons announced an across-the-board budget cut of 4.5 percent, taking what many saw as a meat ax approach to the problem rather than applying a carefully targeted strategy.
The budget hole for current operations may be a problem — but it pales in comparison to the dollars necessary for long-term infrastructure needs. Nevada's transportation department has identified 10 so-called "super" and "mega" projects costing an estimated $4.8 billion that need to be completed by 2015 to avoid gridlock in urban areas and on truck routes. In 2006, a blue-ribbon panel convened by then-Governor Kenny Guinn recommended a combination of tax increases and changes to pay for the projects. The Gibbons administration rejected the suggestions, and instead pieced together funding last year to start one project, a $1.6 billion reconstruction of I-15 through Las Vegas. "Taking this approach in a piecemeal fashion is going to be a problem," cautions one former transportation official. "If you just defer a $4 billion problem for several years, it becomes a $10 billion problem."
Facing such short- and long-term fiscal pressures, Nevada is looking to use and manage technology more efficiently. Like many states, it is examining potential savings through IT consolidation and already has completed a much-needed contracting database, including a vendor-rating system that should allow the purchasing division to better leverage statewide spending. This adds to other advances in the procurement area in the past few years, including participation in cooperative purchasing agreements and concentration on "green" procurement. On the minus side, Nevada trails many states in its use of electronic purchasing and bidding.
For additional data and analysis, go to pewcenteronthestates.org/gpp.