Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

Informing the public

Bill to ‘publish’ tax rolls on the Internet would undermine the public trust in government

Under Nevada law, counties are required to publish their property tax rolls in a local newspaper every year. The law provides transparency in government — flip through a few pages and you can see whether your house is fairly taxed compared with others.

Some lawmakers want the counties to stop publishing the tax rolls in print. The Assembly Taxation Committee on Tuesday voted to approve Assembly Bill 307, which would allow Clark and Washoe counties to “publish” the tax rolls online. The bill is purportedly designed to save taxpayers money. It is estimated that Clark County spends about $500,000 publishing the information.

Posting the tax rolls online would cut into the revenue streams of newspapers such as the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Reno Gazette-Journal. The Las Vegas Sun would be indirectly affected because it is published under a joint operating agreement with the Review-Journal and receives a small percentage of the revenue generated under the agreement.

AB307 is penny wise and pound foolish. Whatever money the bill would save, it could cost the public much more in lost trust in the government.

So the people’s business is in plain view, governments by law are required to publish tax rolls, contract bids and other basic information in newspapers. Under the proposed law, counties would be able to post tax rolls on Web sites outside the view of many members of the public.

Not everyone owns a computer or uses the Internet, and just 44 percent of the adult population has ever visited a government Web site of any kind, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C.

Lawmakers should realize that Nevadans want the information in print. A recent survey of state residents by the Nevada Press Association showed that 56 percent prefer to read the tax rolls and other public notices in newspapers. Just 18 percent said they wanted that information published online.

For decades, government has had an effective way of delivering tax rolls and other information to the public — through newspapers. State lawmakers shouldn’t change what isn’t broken.

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