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Nevada emergency management seeks staff, technology upgrades and a move to governor’s office; loan program would hinge on SB 39
Summary
The Nevada Division of Emergency Management asked the Legislature’s finance subcommittee for multiple staff conversions and new positions, upgraded alerting and IT tools, and federal-authority budget items, and said it plans to move from the Office of the Military into the Governor’s Office to coordinate incident response directly with agency directors.
The Nevada Division of Emergency Management (DEM) presented a package of budget enhancement requests and described a proposed change in organizational placement during a March 2025 joint subcommittee hearing.
DEM said the requests include converting several contractors to permanent positions, creating new staff roles for grants and IT, buying data-mining and alerting tools, continuing several existing contracts and seeking federal authority for travel and conference attendance. The agency also told lawmakers it is pursuing a transfer from the Office of the Military into the Governor’s Office so the division can coordinate directly at the same policy level as other state agencies during emergencies.
Why it matters: DEM is the state’s coordination hub during emergencies. Committee members pressed officials on how the reorganization, new staff and a proposed storm revolving loan program would work, how they would be funded and whether federal grants and matching requirements could affect program timing and sustainability.
DEM deputy administrator Sharon Luce said the operational change is intended to allow the agency to “coordinate at the same level as the state agencies” and to streamline communications during incidents. “We actually started operating in this way last summer,” Luce said, citing DEM’s role in the Davis Fire response and the division’s direct communications with the governor and multiple state agencies.
CFO Jared Franco detailed the decision units the agency presented. Those included requests to reclassify and convert existing contractor roles (decision units E806, E300, E303, E307), new permanent positions such as an accounting assistant (E301), a rural coordinator to be based in Elko (E305), an IT professional (E310) and a loan officer position tied to the proposed Storm Act (E350). Franco said the loan officer position is contingent on passage of SB 39 and would administer a revolving loan intended to help small rural counties fund mitigation projects or provide match funding for larger grants.
Franco gave an illustrative example: for a hypothetical $10 million culvert project, a jurisdiction might need a $2.5 million local match to accept federal mitigation funds; the proposed Storm Act fund would provide low-interest loans to cover such matches so projects can proceed. He also said the agency intends to apply for FEMA capitalization grants for the loan fund “during the biennium” if the program is established and the position is authorized.
Other items in DEM’s request include federal authority to use grant funds for meals for National Guard personnel who must remain on post (Decision Unit E308, cited federal authority 2 CFR 200.432), purchases of data-mining licenses for real-time public-source alerts (E311), continued authority for five existing contracts (E315) and travel or membership authorities to participate in homeland security and emergency management professional conferences (E316, E317, E125, E318, E319 listed by DEM).
Lawmakers questioned timing and funding risks. Assemblymember Brown May asked whether DEM had finalized the statutory language and notified affected agencies; DEM replied that a bill draft request is moving through the process but that the agency is still awaiting final wording. Several members also pressed DEM on the assumptions behind the Storm Act capitalization grant—how much FEMA would provide, whether seed money (general fund match) would be required, and what would happen to the loan-officer position if federal capitalization funding is not received. Franco said seed funds would need to be requested from the Legislature if required and that the agency would provide follow-up details on timelines and estimates.
No formal legislative action or vote occurred during the presentation. DEM officials requested the listed decision units be considered in the subcommittee’s budget deliberations and agreed to provide additional estimates and follow-up responses on the Storm Act capitalization timeline and match requirements.
Next steps: DEM’s requests and the companion bill drafts (including references to SB 413 and SB 39 mentioned in testimony) remain before legislative staff and committee hearings. Officials told members they will provide additional fiscal detail if committees request it.
