Committee votes to remove requirement to publish tax rolls in newspapers

CARSON CITY -- The Assembly Taxation Committee voted Thursday to remove the requirement that county assessors publish tax rolls annually in newspapers.

Members voted 7-6 to tack onto Senate Bill 249 an amendment that would make it optional for counties to publish the bulky tax rolls that show the property tax assessments for all homes and businesses.

Under the bill, they would post the tax roll information on the Internet instead.

Moves to end the tax roll publication requirement have been debated in the Legislature for years.

Virtually every local government lobbyist earlier this year testified for a similar bill that died when Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, refused to take a vote before a deadline.

Two years ago Gov. Jim Gibbons vetoed a bill that would have ended the publication requirement.

Assemblyman Paul Aizley, D-Las Vegas, who co-sponsored the amendment and the earlier bill, argued in a previous meeting that local governments would save $800,000 a year if they did not have to publish tax rolls.

"Every December that enormous piece of newspaper will not crack your sidewalks," quipped Assemblywoman Peggy Pierce, D-Las Vegas, about ending the requirement.

She said she hasn't been able to read the tax rolls for 15 years because the print is too small and her eyesight has deteriorated.

She added if people wanted to "spy" on what their neighbors pay in property taxes that they would find it easier to do on the Internet.

Assembly members Pete Livermore, R-Carson City, and Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, voted against the amendment.

Livermore argued that many people are not Internet savvy and are used to finding the tax information in their newspaper.

"What if residents don't have access to the Internet?" Neal asked. "I am a no."

Former Review-Journal columnist Erin Neff, now the leader of the ProgressNow Nevada organization, had testified in favor of the amendment in an earlier hearing, while Barry Smith, the director of the Nevada Press Association, opposed the change.

Smith said he will try to persuade legislators to oppose the amendment when it goes to the Assembly floor.

He said that if transparency is a goal of legislators, then they should favor publishing the tax rolls both in news­papers and on the Internet.

Through publishing in newspapers, he said, there is a permanent record of the tax information, while there is nothing to prevent Internet information from being removed, changed or hacked.

The amendment also was opposed by Kirkpatrick, John Ellison, R-Elko, Harvey Munford, D-Las Vegas, and Melissa Woodbury, R-Las Vegas.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.