Inside the Study: Understanding Nevada's Federal Funding Landscape

The enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) in 2025 reshaped the flow of federal funds to state budgets, reducing federal support for programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid, and changing states’ share of administrative costs for program operation. In combination with sweeping federal grant freezes and cancellations, leaders have questioned how these changes will specifically affect Nevada.

“There has been a lot of confusion about these changes at the federal level and how they'll impact Nevada programs here,” said Pierron Tackes, the Guinn Center’s former Director of Health and Social Policy. “So last year, we set out to understand how much federal funding comes into Nevada’s state budget.”

The Guinn Center’s first brief on the topic, Overview of Statewide Federal Funding in Nevada: 2023-2025 Biennium, outlined the types of federal funding Nevada receives and traced their distribution across Nevada’s top five federally funded state agencies. However, the brief did not capture how these funds flow into community entities or localities, leaving additional uncertainty about Nevada’s funding landscape.

“Following the publication of that brief, we had more questions about what these changes mean to Nevada's programs,” Tackes explained. “Chief among them was how it affects Nevada's nonprofits, recognizing that much of this federal funding passes through the state and funds nonprofits to provide direct services to Nevadans.”

Nevada has a limited tax base and receives less federal funding per resident than most of the country, which can create shaky ground for service delivery. Nonprofits and third-party contractors are often vital in providing essential services across health, education, and housing to Nevadans, relying on dollars passed down from federal funds.

“The concern is that as federal funding changes, those direct services may need to be brought internally to the Nevada state government, and their ability to provide those direct services is really unclear. It could be much more expensive for the state to provide those services, or they may lack the expertise to provide those services,” said Tackes.

The Guinn Center’s latest brief on federal funds focuses squarely on this question, examining the amount of pass-through funding that Nevada nonprofits receive to provide direct services and the functions they support. However, the answer to this question reveals limitations in Nevada’s data infrastructure, preventing a full understanding of the funding landscape.

“Our primary finding with this report is that Nevada lacks the data infrastructure to fully map federal funding here in Nevada, which was a surprising finding to us, but was an important finding nonetheless,” said Tackes. “What we were able to do is look at a snapshot of federal funding that passes through Nevada state agencies and where it lands as a first recipient, recognizing that those first recipients may further pass it on to nonprofits here in Nevada.”

According to the report, these data limitations create barriers to responding to federal funding changes and anticipating continuity risks to services provided by the nonprofit sector, making long-term planning difficult for policymakers.  

“Our report makes a number of considerations for Nevada's policymakers. Among them, strengthening and broadening our data infrastructure so we can fully map federal funding and track it here in Nevada, down to the community-based organization level, to better understand how these funds are being used. Understanding that from a data perspective will enable Nevada's policymakers to make better strategic decisions,” Tackes explained.

Follow-up studies on Nevada’s funding landscape are necessary to better understand the state's relationship with the nonprofit sector. Tackes explains, “What we'd like to do is identify a sampling of nonprofits here in Nevada and do a qualitative study as to how much of their funding is made up of federal funds. If there are changes to those federal funds, whether it's a reduction, a complete freeze, or a rescinding of those federal funds, what does that mean? Do doors close? Do programs stop?”

The study points toward transparency into funding pathways as the first step toward building a more stable foundation for Nevada’s funding ecosystem and ensuring the delivery of essential services statewide. In support of this step, the Guinn Center’s report provides a detailed appendix that shows the dollar amount of federal funding that passes through to various entities from the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, and Department of Agriculture.

The Guinn Center hopes to continue this series of policy briefs, tracing federal dollars from receipt to end use to provide clearer visibility into these funding streams. For an in-depth conversation on this research, watch our recent webinar on federal funds, available on demand here.

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