Nye County slashes budget to close projected $7 million shortfall

Nye County closed a projected $7 million budget gap by freezing hiring, cutting more than $4 million from services and supplies, trimming salaries by $1.2 million and pulling $1.5 million out of the jail transfer, a last-minute scramble that will be felt first in everyday county services and public safety staffing.

The Board of Commissioners approved the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget on a 5-0 vote May 27, just ahead of the May 29 deadline with the Nevada Department of Taxation. Comptroller Zena Teich told commissioners the county was looking at about $57 million in revenue and $56.72 million in base general-fund spending, but once about $10.5 million in transfers were added, the budget was roughly $11 million in the red.

To make the numbers work, county leaders cut services and supplies by about 32 percent, reduced risk-management funding from 3.25 percent to 3 percent and imposed a hiring freeze across county government. Teich said the salary reductions were tied in part to expected retirements in Nye County Buildings and Grounds, the recorder’s office and Tonopah Justice Court, along with two employees in the sheriff’s office who sought buyouts.

The cuts also reached the Nye County Detention Center. Commissioners reduced the transfer from the general fund into the jail fund by $1.5 million and shifted another $250,000 to the indigent medical fund. One commissioner said the jail reduction might be bolstered later with Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency grant money if the cut proves too deep.

The county had been warning for weeks that the budget would not balance without painful changes. In April, Teich told commissioners services and supplies would need to be cut by about a third, and in May she said the state would not approve a deficit budget. Bayne said the county has mismanaged finances for years and said he was unhappy about losing deputy positions, while John Koenig called the reductions hard cuts and said the county would have to keep working on the problem.

The pressure has been building since the jail lost its federal immigration detainee contract in November 2024, after the county lost its jail medical provider. That contract, in place since 2019, had covered 60 ICE detainees at the time it ended and brought in about $2 million, while a renewed medical-services contract would have cost about $2.2 million through the end of 2025.

For residents in Pahrump, Tonopah, Beatty, Gabbs and Manhattan, the result is a leaner county operation with less room for overtime, maintenance and vacancy backfills. Nye County balanced the books, but it did so by cutting into the services and staffing that residents notice first.