State Public Works presents $1.13 billion capital program; forensic psychiatric facility and veterans nursing home flagged as top priorities

The State Public Works Division presented its recommended capital improvement program (CIP) to the Legislative Commissions Budget Subcommittee, reporting more than 400 project requests and a governor's recommendation of roughly $1.128 billion in projects for the 2025 CIP.

Why it matters: The CIP funds state facilities, life-safety and deferred maintenance work, and large capital construction projects; Public Works' prioritization affects corrections, health facilities, veterans services and other agency operations.

Key takeaways:

- Volume of requests: Public Works staff said agencies submitted 441 project requests; after vetting and removing duplicates or expired requests staff recommended a subset to the state Public Works Board.

- Governor's recommendation and priorities: The Public Works Board recommended $1.247 billion; the governor's executive recommendation in the packet presented to the committee totals $1.128 billion across 71 projects. Priority categories included legal requirements (Americans with Disabilities Act, life-safety, and court-ordered compliance), deferred maintenance, project continuations, and new construction.

- Forensic psychiatric facility: The largest single set of legally required projects (CO1 and CO2 in the CIP presentation) would construct a new forensic psychiatric campus in Southern Nevada: a combined set of projects for a 327,000-square-foot, roughly 300-bed psychiatric forensic facility at the Charleston Boulevard campus with an estimated combined price in the hundreds of millions (Public Works showed a $420 million combined figure for the two products). Public Works described the project as necessary to eliminate backlog, comply with court orders and provide care for forensic patients.

- Veterans nursing facility: Project C03, previously funded for design, would move to construction: a 156,700-square-foot, 128-bed skilled nursing facility for veterans in North Las Vegas at the Decatur DMV site, with a planning/estimated cost the board showed as $223 million. Public Works said federal Veterans Affairs funding is expected to cover a sizable share of the final project cost once the construction contract is set.

- Maintenance and statewide programs: Public Works reported about $221 million in combined maintenance requests (many grouped into combined maintenance products with multiple subprojects per product). The Facility Condition Analysis (FCA) group documented an estimated $679.6 million of recommended repairs across the state's 11.3 million square feet of state-owned buildings; replacement-cost estimates for the buildings were roughly $4.5 billion.

Process and challenges: Public Works staff said staffing vacancies (a 21 percent vacancy rate in public-works professional services and building inspection sections), supply-chain delays (electrical transformers and other components can take many months to procure), and competitive private-sector pay were constraining delivery of projects. Staff also noted that federal grant apportionments have increased in recent years, raising available federal funds but also increasing state matching obligations.

Ending: Public Works said it will provide more detailed CIP briefings and project-level presentations in subsequent hearings. Lawmakers requested further detail about individual projects, federal grant timing and any required state match or reimbursement timing for federally-funded projects.