What Is the Nevada Economic Forum?

Every two years, five private-sector appointees decide, in effect, how much money Nevada state government is allowed to plan on spending. They aren't legislators. They aren't part of the Governor's cabinet. They're the Economic Forum — and the number they approve becomes the legal ceiling under which the Governor's budget and the Legislature's appropriations bills must fit.

What the panel is, and why it exists

Before 1993, Nevada's revenue projections came out of the executive branch itself — the Governor's budget staff estimated how much tax money the state would collect, and legislators had to take that estimate on faith or fight over it. Senate Bill 23 of the 1993 Legislature created the Economic Forum specifically to take that number out of both branches' hands: a panel of private-sector economists, tied to neither the Governor's political incentives nor the Legislature's, whose forecast both sides are then bound to use.

The Forum's only job is narrow and specific: produce "an accurate estimate of the revenue that will be collected by the State for general, unrestricted uses" for the upcoming two-year budget cycle (NRS 353.228). It does not set tax policy, recommend spending levels, or weigh in on what the state should fund. It forecasts a single number — General Fund revenue — and hands it to the people who do.

The statutory basis: NRS 353.226–353.230

The Forum's structure and duties are spelled out across five sections of Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 353:

• NRS 353.226 — impanelment, appointment, terms, qualifications, and removal of members.
• NRS 353.227 — officers, meeting logistics, quorum, and member compensation.
• NRS 353.228 — the Forum's forecasting duties and reporting deadlines.
• NRS 353.229 — the seven-member Technical Advisory Committee on Future State Revenues, which supplies the Forum with data and analysis.
• NRS 353.230 — how the Governor's Budget Division must use the Forum's numbers in building the proposed budget.

A majority of the five members constitutes a quorum, and a majority of those present must concur in any decision. Members receive the standard state per diem and travel allowance, plus $80 for one day of preparation and $80 for each day a meeting lasts.

How the five members are appointed

All five Forum members are formally appointed by the Governor, but not all five are the Governor's free choice. Under NRS 353.226:

• The Governor appoints three members of the Governor's own selection.
• The Governor must appoint one member nominated by the Senate Majority Leader.
• The Governor must appoint one member nominated by the Speaker of the Assembly.

Nominating authorities must submit their nominee's name to the Governor by June 15 of each even-numbered year (or within 30 days of a vacancy). If a nominating authority misses that deadline, the Governor may appoint any qualified person to the seat instead. Every member serves a two-year term, must be "an expert with demonstrated ability in the field of economics, taxation or other discipline necessary to economic forecasting," and — critically — cannot be a current officer or employee of Nevada state government, including its public universities. The Governor may remove a member for good cause. The Forum elects its own Chair and Vice Chair at its first meeting each cycle.

Why the forecast is legally binding on the budget

This is the part that makes the Forum more than an advisory body. NRS 353.230 requires the Chief of the Budget Division to "use the projections and estimates prepared by the Economic Forum" when assembling the Governor's proposed budget, and states plainly that "all projections of revenue and any other information concerning future state revenue contained in the proposed budget must be based upon" the Forum's numbers — not the administration's own estimate, and not a more optimistic or pessimistic alternative. The same constraint follows the budget into the Legislature: NRS 353.235 makes a supplementary appropriation invalid if it exceeds money actually available in the Treasury, unless the Legislature also enacts new revenue to cover it.

In practice, that means the Forum's number — not the Governor's preference, not any legislator's — sets the outer boundary of what the state can plan to spend. See our Nevada state budget explainer for how that ceiling then flows through the Governor's recommended budget and the Legislature's budget bills.

The meeting calendar and forecast cycle

The Forum is impaneled by the Governor on or before July 1 of each even-numbered year. Under the statute as amended during the 2025 legislative session, it must then:

• Prepare its initial written forecast on or before November 15 of that even-numbered year, and present it to the Governor and the Legislature.
• Prepare a confirming or revising report on or before April 1 of the following odd-numbered year — after the Forum has had a full legislative session's worth of updated economic data — and present that to the Governor and the Legislature.
• Hold additional informational meetings (on or before June 10 of the even-numbered year and December 10 of the odd-numbered year) that check actual General Fund revenue against the standing forecast, without adopting a new one, and report the results to the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee.

Those November 15 / April 1 deadlines are new. For every recent cycle — including the two forecasts detailed below — the Forum operated under the previous schedule: an initial forecast due by December 3 of the even-numbered year (used by the Governor to build the Executive Budget) and a revised forecast due by May 1 of the odd-numbered year (used by the Legislature to finish the budget during session). The Legislature moved both deadlines earlier in 2025. Because the current Forum was just impaneled by the July 1, 2026 deadline, its first report under the new November 15 deadline is due later this year, ahead of the 2027 legislative session.

The latest official forecast

The most recent full forecast cycle covered the 2025–27 biennium (Fiscal Years 2026 and 2027). The Forum's initial forecast, approved December 2, 2024, projected General Fund revenue, after tax credits, of $6.134 billion in FY 2026 and $6.299 billion in FY 2027. Its revised forecast, approved May 1, 2025 — citing a weakening outlook tied largely to new federal trade policy — brought that down to $6.036 billion in FY 2026 and $6.206 billion in FY 2027, a reduction of roughly $191 million (about 1.5%) for the biennium.

Both forecasts break General Fund revenue into the same seven "major" revenue sources the Forum reviews individually at every meeting — see our Nevada revenue sources breakdown for what each one taxes and how much it raises. Read the full reports directly: the December 2, 2024 forecast report (PDF) and the May 1, 2025 forecast report (PDF). Track how every forecast we've verified back to 2020 has compared to what actually came in on our Forecast Tracker.

Sources: Nevada Legislature — Nevada Revised Statutes (as of 2026-07-22); Nevada Legislature, Fiscal Analysis Division — Economic Forum (as of 2024-12-02); Nevada Legislature, Fiscal Analysis Division — Economic Forum (as of 2025-05-01)

What happens after the Forum votes

The Forum's number doesn't spend itself. Once the binding forecast is set, the Governor's Budget Division builds The Executive Budget around it, the Legislature holds hearings and passes appropriation bills that can't exceed it, and the state's balanced-budget requirements under the Nevada Constitution keep the whole cycle honest. For the full mechanics — how money gets appropriated, where it goes, and what "balanced budget" actually means under Nevada law — see Nevada's state budget process, explained. For the tax base the Forum is forecasting in the first place, see Nevada's major revenue sources and Nevada business taxes.