SB21: Employment contracts would remain if water board dissolved

The Nye County Water District could go away if the bill that seeks to abolish it finds support in the Legislature.

However, the employment contracts that had been created by the district would stay in place, state officials told proponents of the bill last week.

The Senate Government Affairs Committee on Friday held a hearing on proposed Senate Bill 21 that seeks to abolish the Nye County Water District, where state and local officials went over the language of the bill.

Nevada Sen. David Parks said Nye County commissioners would have to assume responsibilities of the water district if it goes away.

“The only way I can see to rectify whatever is currently in place falls on the Board of County Commissioners to handle that,” Parks said.

“And that would be fine, we are willing to accept the responsibility, at least the majority of us are,” Nye County Commissioner Donna Cox told Parks.

The hearing on the bill had been postponed before when it was taken off the committee’s agenda. Nevada Sen. Pete Goicoechea said last week he had a request from Commissioner Butch Borasky to hold it until Nye County commissioners vote to confirm their support of the bill.

On Feb. 21, the Nye County Commission voted 3-2 to continue its support for the bill.

Goicoechea and Assemblyman James Oscarson released a statement about SB21 following the commission vote.

“This bill was brought to the Legislature by Nye County commissioners. They introduced it, and they support it. We believe that this is a decision best made by local government and those closest to the issue. Any indications otherwise are simply untrue. We both believe in local control of water resources, but we will defer to the county commission as to specific actions they wish to take. This is, after all, not a state issue but an issue of local government.”

According to the bill, any action taken by the Nye County Water District or any member of the governing board of the district, any member of the staff or any professional adviser of the district remains in effect as if taken by county commissioners.

Heidi Chlarson, the committee’s legal counsel, said Nye County commissioners will not be prevented from changing provisions created by the district, if it is dissolved, as long as these actions are within their authority.

“It’s not meant to prevent your board of county commissioners from taking action going forward, it’s just trying to provide that if something is in place now, it is going to continue to be in place until the time when the Nye County Board of Commissioners takes action to change that,” Chlarson said.

The bill states that any agreements, debts, duties, obligations and property of the Nye County Water District become agreements, debts, duties, obligations and property of the county commissioners on the effective date of the bill.

If the district is abolished, the existing employment contracts would remain in place, unless there are provisions within the contract that have termination language, Chlarson said.

“That language is there to clarify that those agreements will remain in effect, it’s just substituting the board of county commissioner for the governing board of the district,” Chlarson said.

Goicoechea said the reason the wording is there is to ensure that commissioners will assume any of those agreements, duties or liabilities that are currently held by the Nye County Water District Governing Board.

“The following day, as long as it’s legal for you to do so, you can terminate all of them, but again, you have to abide by the terms of those contracts,” Goicoechea said.

In her testimony, Cox said the people feel “the board is ineffective and a waste of money.”

“They want the board that’s been elected to make these final decisions, not the board that’s been appointed to spend their money,” Cox said.

Some members of the committee expressed concern about the county commission’s approach to continuing water planning duties.

“Right now, we have a planning department, and they oversee a lot of issues that are very close to this, and I think that we could just have them look at or review or maybe take over certain duties that we may need to keep. … Other than that, we don’t have a lot of water issues, we are still small, we are still growing and we do have monies available to continue on to do some of those things,” Cox said.

Cox said there’s also a plan to put together a citizen advisory board comprised of local volunteers to deal with water issues.

Parks said members of the committee will bring up the bill during their work session in the Legislature. The bill would become effective upon passage and approval, according to the documents.

Contact reporter Daria Sokolova at dsokolova@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @dariasokolova77