Children’s advocacy group highlights victories, losses of the legislative session

(Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

Policies that impact vulnerable populations like children often don’t get as much attention from state lawmakers as special interest groups with deep financial pockets. Still, advocates say this year’s legislative session made “substantial progress” advancing the well-being of children.

“We see now more than ever a context where money is leading decisions,” said Tara Raines, the deputy director of the Children’s Advocacy Alliance, which on Tuesday held a virtual panel to discuss the 2025 Legislative Session.

“We want to make sure that folks who don’t have the resources, like children in particular, who can’t vote, can’t write contributions and give contributions and donations, that they have a voice,” Raines added.

This year’s session brought major disappointments, like the veto of a bill to require some businesses to offer paid family and medical leave, but also some under-the-radar triumphs, like the capping of child welfare caseloads, that advocates believe will have an immediate and positive impact on children.

Ideas that failed

One of the bills the alliance supported that failed was Assembly Bill 185, which sought to prevent most homeowners associations from prohibiting licensed home-based childcare operations within their communities.

“Decreasing those barriers for licensure would mean increasing the ability to serve more of Nevada’s families, and the cost of care would decline as we know that home based care is oftentimes more affordable,” Dr. Jamelle Nance, director of early childhood policy for the alliance, said.

The bill received some bipartisan support, but was vetoed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.

In his veto message he wrote the legislation “disrupts that balance by stripping HOAs of a key element of their regulatory authority.”

“While expanding access to child care is an important goal for supporting a productive workforce, AB 185 addresses the issue in a way that undermines the foundational principles of homeowners’ associations,” he wrote. 

The alliance also backed Assembly Bill 388, which would have required employers with 50 or more employees to implement a paid family and medical leave. It wouldn’t have gone into effect until Jan. 1, 2028.

Nance said the policy was “important for the financial stability of Nevada families.”

The bill was opposed by business industry groups like chambers of commerce.

In his statement, Lombardo sided with businesses.  

“Nevada has long prided itself on maintaining a business-friendly environment-one that supports growth, innovation, and job creation,” Lombardo wrote in his veto message. “Now is not the time to introduce broad, burdensome mandates that would significantly disrupt this balance, particularly for Nevada’s small and mid-sized businesses.”

Assembly Bill 339 sought to establish an office of children’s mental and behavioral health within the Department of Health and Human Services to streamline and connect the provision of mental and behavioral health services for children.

The bill didn’t advance on its own but its language was amended into the governor’s health care bill to become the framework for the Office of Mental Health, according to Carissa Pearce, the health policy manager with the alliance.

Lombardo’s health care bill, Senate Bill 495, was also amended by Democrats to include language related to freestanding emergency rooms, which caused Senate Republicans to vote against the bill. It never received a vote in the Assembly.

Senate Bill 306 would have required the Division of Child and Family Services of the Department of Health and Human Service to create a task force looking at transitional housing for youth discharged from treatment facilities. 

“The bill proposed the creation of a multi-agency task force to design transitional housing and support services for children when they’re discharged from psychiatric facilities or released on parole,” said Annette Dawson Owens, the community engagement manager for the alliance. “It was commonly referred to as the ‘no eject, no reject bill.’”

The bill went through several amendments and ultimately died.

What progress was made

Despite several bills the group back failing, Dawson Owens said the session passed legislation that would benefit children in the state.

Among these was Senate Bill 284, which puts more parameters on child welfare agencies regarding how it deals with the federal benefits children in the agency receive.

Jonathan Norman, statewide advocacy, outreach and policy director for the Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers, said on Tuesday that the bill will stop child welfare agencies “from intercepting and using the child’s federal benefit, which could be social security disability, (Veterans Affairs) benefit or a death benefit to cover the cost of that child being in foster care.”

Nevada is the sixth state to pass this type of legislation, he added.

Other bills the alliance highlighted as a positive for the well being of child included:

• Senate Bill 183, which prohibits child welfare agencies from assigning more than 30 children to a caseworker. It makes exceptions to allow siblings to be assigned to the same caseworker.
• Senate Bill 165, which creates a profession of licensed behavioral health and wellness practitioners by the Board of Psychological Examiners for the supervised clinical use of prevention and early intervention strategies relating to children’s mental health.
• Senate Bill 460, a heavily negotiated education bill between Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and Lombardo that, among other things, attempts to expand pre-kindergarten programs by extending eligibility for state-funded pre-K and raising the household income for eligibility to 250% of the federal poverty level.