© 2024 KUNR
Illustration of rolling hills with occasional trees and a radio tower.
Serving Northern Nevada and the Eastern Sierra
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
KUNR’s spring fund drive is happening now, and your gift to the station will go twice as far with a matching pledge from the KUNR Advisory Board!

Now is the time to act –
click here to make a gift to KUNR today or increase your sustaining membership and have it matched.

#NVLeg: Lawmakers Looking To Help Small Biz Says Benitez-Thompson

Assemblywoman Teresa Benitez-Thompson sits at her desk in the Assembly. She is wearing a red jacket and a black face mask while she speaks with someone.
(David Calvert/The Nevada Independent)
Assembly Majority Floor Leader, Teresa Benitez-Thompson, left, speaks with Susan Furlong, Chief Clerk of the Assembly, right, inside the Legislature on Monday, March 15, 2021 in Carson City, Nev.

Federal officials, this week, released the first guidance on how states can use billions of dollars from the latest round of coronavirus relief funds. The money is meant to keep state and local governments solvent as they deal with lagging tax revenues and greater demands on services. But Nevada's economy is recovering faster than previously expected. KUNR's Paul Boger spoke with Democratic Assemblywoman Teresa Benitez-Thompson about how the session is progressing and how best lawmakers can use that money.

PAUL BOGER: The speaker and the governor talked about lawmakers really focusing on pandemic relief and trying to help Nevadans through this pandemic. Where is the legislature on those bills, on that pandemic relief, and what more is going to come out of the session, do you think?

TERESA BENITEZ-THOMPSON: The conversation we're going to be having is about the Governor's Office of Economic Development and abatements, because we know that we have different areas of the state that are struggling with record numbers of unemployment, and then different areas of the state that are not. So we really need to focus on and target our communities who are going to take the longest to recover. So we see that conversation as being very important to how Nevada recovers.

You're going to see a conversation much more about small business. Speaker Frierson and I introduced and carried a bill that will allow the Lieutenant Governor's office to have a small business advocacy office. That's important because we need someone to be that extra voice for helping small businesses swim through regulations, swim through loss, swim through all of the rules and compliance issues that are out there. So much of our economic work has been focused on very large companies, and all this time, it's been hard for small businesses to be able to get a foothold, to say, where is the ecosystem to help us grow and develop in the same way that we have created ecosystems for the bigger companies like the Teslas, like the Amazons and like big tech? Small business just grows roots deeper than any other kind of business in our community. And so we want to foster that.

BOGER: During the special session last summer, you and your fellow Democrats approved a set of resolutions aimed at raising mining taxes here in the state. They've yet to come up [during] this session. Are you planning to bring those back at all?

BENITEZ-THOMPSON: Absolutely. I think the public expects us to have good conversations around our revenue structure in the state, especially around the mining industry. And so those conversations will be happening. I think that you will see a pretty robust conversation within coming weeks on that, on that matter.

BOGER: You're a Northern Nevada lawmaker.There are several communities in this part of the state that are heavily reliant on the mining industry. At this point, is there any concern about how this could affect jobs in those communities?

BENITEZ-THOMPSON: We need businesses to invest in Nevada, as much as Nevada invests in business. We have this relationship in mining that goes back to statehood. They are listed in our constitution, but there comes a point where you have to say, how are all businesses treated? And does it still make sense to have one industry have a constitutional protection and provisions that are separate and different from what every other business has to follow? So for me, it's always been a fairness conversation. And I think that, if you want to talk about revenue and you talk about taxes, fairness is always the most important thing you have to contemplate. So for me, it's just about getting a more level playing field.

BOGER: Speaking of money, Nevada is set to get about $4.2 billion in federal COVID relief funds. In your opinion, how should the state use that money?

BENITEZ-THOMPSON: It's really important to fill out our healthcare infrastructure. So this not only means the state Department of Health and Human Services, our department of aging services, our services for families with autism, our services for our medically fragile seniors. As much as we can, I think we need to make those essential services whole, first and foremost. Secondly, on the road to recovery, we've got to see what we can do for small business. We have to see what we can do for specific industry sectors that have taken a hit. And I know a big tranches of these dollars are going to be specifically geared towards economic recovery. That is a conversation that I am very enthusiastic about, once we get these dollars, to see what we can do with them.

Paul Boger is a former reporter at KUNR Public Radio.
Related Content