Sisolak’s Systemic Incompetence at DETR Now on Full Display

(Chuck Muth) – How badly has Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak handled the CHINA-19 situation?  Here’s the latest example from a report in Thursday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal…

“Nevada was the last state to apply for a first-come, first-served program that would put more money in jobless Nevadans’ pockets.”

LAST.

Gets worse.

President Trump authorized the special $300/week unemployment benefit and left it up to the states to decide whether or not to kick in an additional $100/week.  But Gov. Sisolak said no, “Citing the state’s budget constraints.”

But the state’s in such a deep budget hole because the governor refuses to take serious steps in cutting non-essential government programs or laying off non-essential government workers.

So he’s blocking some 335,000 unemployed Nevadans from receiving the extra money in order to protect government employees from the same pain and misery everyone else is suffering.

Meanwhile, thousands of other unemployed Nevadans STILL can’t even get their regular unemployment benefits thanks to the ongoing fuster-cluck at Sisolak’s Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR).

By the way, Nevada continues to have the highest unemployment rate in the nation.  Heckuva job, governor.

Flailing about to bail his administration out of this mismanagement debacle, Sisolak announced – with much fanfare, pomp and circumstance – another leadership shake-up at DETR a couple weeks ago, heralding former Democrat Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley as the new Unemployment Czaress.

How’s that working out for us?

Well, the LVRJ reported this morning that DETR will be announcing yet ANOTHER “leadership update” later this week.  Lovely.

In the meantime, the RJ reported on Wednesday that DETR has begun training “200 part-time welfare eligibility workers” to handle the backlog of unemployment claims, in addition to rehiring “retired state employees” and activating some 300 workers at the Department of Health and Human Services “who are willing to work overtime for DETR.”

Since all of that is gonna cost even more money the state doesn’t have, we can’t help but wonder…why?

Why not detail current non-essential government employees – who are home twiddling their thumbs or doing nothing of consequence while still getting paid – to DETR instead of hiring new workers and paying inflated overtime salaries?

And why hasn’t the governor cancelled the multi-million contract he signed months ago with a telemarketing/bill collection firm that was supposed to fix this problem but didn’t?

It’s an enigma wrapped inside a mystery.

Of course, you can’t ask the governor these questions.  He’s refused to face citizens and taxpayers in a public forum – even virtually – for the last 6 months and only rarely takes softball questions from a meek media that’s been giving him a pass on all this.

Don’t blame me.  I voted for Laxalt.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“Pelosi’s hair salon incident is minor in the larger scheme of things but it’s politically dangerous because it’s something everyone can understand and the hypocrisy of it is so flamingly obvious.” – Britt Hume

“(T)he New York Times amazingly reported earlier this week that up to 90% of so-called cases in the states they got data from — Nevada, New York, and Massachusetts — are false positives and are merely detecting old, dead viral fragments that are not infectious.” – Stephen Moore of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity

“(S)tatistical analysis shows that locking down the economy didn’t contain the disease’s spread and reopening it didn’t unleash a second wave of infections.  Considering that lockdowns are economically costly…imposing them appears to have been a large policy error. … So where’s the science that would justify the heavy lockdowns many public-health officials are still demanding?” – Donald L. Luskin, chief investment officer of TrendMacro

(Mr. Muth is president of CitizenOutreach.org and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com.  He blogs at MuthsTruths.com.  His views are his own.)