State revenues drop to pre-boom levels

Nevada state government has stepped back in time - and not in a good way.

The state's primary sources of General Fund revenue, gaming and sales taxes, are at levels not seen for years.

"It's like we went back in time," said Administration Director Andrew Clinger.

According to analysis, the daily gaming "drop" - the amount wagered in the state's casinos - has fallen to about $370 million. Clinger said the last time the drop was that low was June 1993.

Nevada has now seen year-over-year declines in gaming drop for 25 months.

Sales tax numbers aren't much better. Daily sales tax collections are now at the same level they were in July 2000 - before the significant boom in not only tourism but construction following the state's recovery from 9/11. The Department of Taxation is seeing only about $2 million a day in sales and use tax collections.

For sales tax collections, the state has now endured 32 months of year-over-year declines. There was one month of positive numbers in there - the result of added tax revenue collected during an amnesty from penalties for those who fessed up to not registering their businesses in Nevada.

Clinger said to make matters even more depressing, the total number of people employed in the state has actually fallen to the number of workers in March 2004. From a peak of 1.3 million, the total is down 170,000 to just more than 1.1 million.

Through August, the jobless rate had risen to 13.2 percent, a record for the 30 years the state has kept track of employment.

With the end of fiscal 2009 June 30, Nevada casinos reported their worst year on record with total win 13.7 percent less than the previous year. The total win of $10.8 billion statewide was the lowest in five years.

Taxable sales were down just slightly less than gaming - 12.7 percent below the amount reported for fiscal 2008.

The numbers, according to planning division economists, are done on a daily basis to eliminate comparison problems caused by different numbers of days in a month and other such factors.