LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Channel 13 is hearing from two different unions, the Clark County Education Association and Nevada State Education Association, after Governor Joe Lombardo signed a new executive order.
The executive order provides guardrails for companies setting their sights on Nevada to build their next data center.
One of the parameters involves companies losing a tax break they’ve had for a decade in the state and instead paying to fund K-12 education.
WATCH | Education unions respond to Gov. Lombardo's data center executive order
Gov. Lombardo said the order “puts money back into our schools that otherwise would have been lost under outdated state law” in a statement Friday.
So far, not everyone sees it that way. Alexander Marks of NSEA told Channel 13 on Friday that “dedicating some revenue to public education doesn’t make bad policy [a] good policy.”
The NSEA represents “teachers, education support professionals, other licensed professionals in every county throughout Nevada.”
Their full statement reads:
Governor Lombardo’s executive order is a continuation of Nevada’s failed data center tax giveaways. It leaves every previously approved abatement untouched, preserves the broader data center abatement program, and makes it state policy to facilitate additional data center development. This is not a pro-public education executive order.
Public education is being used to provide political cover for a data-center growth policy. Governor Lombardo should stop inventing datacenter-dependent approaches to school funding. Nevada educators are not asking for more data centers with better branding. Nevadans are raising serious concerns about the industry’s impact on our water, power grid, utility bills, and communities.
They are also concerned about continued cuts to public education while hundreds of millions in revenue have been lost through data center tax abatements approved by Governor Lombardo’s administration. Nearly 60% of Nevada voters oppose data centers being built in or near their communities. While the order stops abating the Local School Support Tax for new and pending applications, that is less than a half measure.
Data centers can still qualify for other tax abatements, including personal property tax abatements of up to 75 percent. And the order does nothing to address previously approved agreements or the hundreds of millions in public revenue Nevada has already lost through data center tax breaks.
At a time of drastic cuts to public education, continuing to give away hundreds of millions in desperately needed revenue harms Nevada’s students. Attorney General Aaron Ford has proposed a much simpler approach: stop new data center tax abatements and review the tax breaks already on the books. If state leaders want data centers to support public education, end all abatements and make them pay their fair share.
Nevada already has a roadmap to optimally fund our public schools through the Commission on School Funding. The Commission has identified property and sales tax reform as the primary revenue sources capable of moving Nevada toward optimal funding.
These reforms can be supplemented by the elimination of data center abatements. Instead of throwing another data center scheme at the wall and hoping it will stick, state leaders should follow the roadmap Nevada already has. Seriously, Pass the Plan.”
The Clark County Education Association represents 18,000 teachers, and Executive Director John Vellardita told KTNV this executive order is a “very important first step.”
He said, “Every dollar that K-12 gets is meaningful to a kid’s education, particularly the urban core schools in this school district, where over 200,000 students are in schools that have experienced systemically over the last several years, high vacancies, not enough teacher support...not enough wraparound services, high truancy, and behavioral issues.”
The CCEA’s full statement reads:
"Governor Lombardo has heard from Nevadans and educators. The Executive Order (EO) addresses several key issues that must change moving forward in order for data centers to continue investing in Nevada.
Last week, The Clark County Education Association (CCEA) released its 8-point plan regarding data centers. CCEA’s position was straightforward: data centers must become good corporate partners. Important issues like water, power, community control, tighter regulations, ending the Local School Support Tax (LSST) abatement, reviewing the property tax abatement, and investing in workforce development and retraining opportunities for jobs displaced by AI must be resolved.
'We understand this will require legislation in the Nevada 2027 Legislative Session. With that said, the Governor has demonstrated leadership by acting now with an Executive Order,' said Kristan Nigro, President of the Clark County Education Association.
The Governor’s EO addresses several parts of CCEA’s 8-point plan for data centers that would be required in order to invest in Nevada.
• Pay the LSST that will fund public schools
• Protects water
• Protects the electrical grid
• No ratepayer bears the cost of a data center or sees any rate increases
• Protects the community that hosts the DC
• Provides for Nevada Community Support Commitment for penalties for failure to comply
• The EO also addresses a national security concern and prohibits investment by a foreign adversary of the United States”
