April Mastroluca
For Assembly District 29
The 75th session of the Nevada Legislature adjourned as required by our state constitution on June 1. I want to provide you a brief overview of the session.
• We passed a balanced budget that cut more than a billion dollars in spending.
• Governor Gibbons proposed drastic cuts to education funding that would have devastated public education in Nevada. We enacted a budget that restored 43% of the Governor’s proposed major cuts to K-12 education.
• We worked with businesses to develop a revenue plan that allows us to continue to fund vital services without putting an undue tax burden on any business, family or individual. That plan actually lowers the business tax for 74% of Nevada businesses.
• We passed legislation to spur the development of renewable energy in our state in a way that creates new jobs. Our comprehensive energy bill, AB 522, will provide financial incentives to renewable energy companies that provide high-paying jobs to Nevada workers.
• One of the causes of our current economic crisis is the increasing number of home foreclosures and the resulting loss of home values and neighborhood blight. To help our economy recover and address this foreclosure crisis, we passed a bill requiring good faith mediation between a lender and borrower, if the borrower requests mediation. We also passed legislation to protect homeowners from foreclosure scams and renters from immediate, unannounced evictions if the home they are living in is foreclosed.
• In order to reform our budget process and to require more accountability from state government, we established a forced savings account for our state, enacted systems to better track those businesses failing to pay the taxes they owe, and we cracked down on the unnecessary use of expensive outside consultants by state agencies.
• We passed legislation to reform our middle and junior high schools to better meet the needs of our students in these important transition years. I authored the section of this bill that implements student-led conferences. These conferences encourage students to actively participate in their education and take greater responsibility for their academic success.
• As a working parent, I understand the challenges many parents face when trying to stay involved in their children’s education. I successfully sponsored legislation to allow parents to take unpaid leave, up to 4 hours per school year, from work to volunteer at their child's school or attend parent-teacher conferences.
I hope you will email me or call me for more information or to discuss any of these issues.
