Nevada agencies have spent about $1 billion of roughly $2.7 billion in flexible federal pandemic relief funds, according to information shared with lawmakers, leaving a substantial amount still unspent with about a year left before the federal funds must be used or they would be returned to the government.
The state received the money in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan Act, a federal law that allowed Nevada to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars toward projects ranging from mental health programs to broadband infrastructure. As of last month, Nevada had not spent more than $700 million of the funds, lawmakers were told, while officials said they remained optimistic that the state would spend the money by the deadline at the end of 2026.
Under the federal “use it or lose it” rule described in the materials, unspent ARPA money would revert back to the federal government. The dollars can be used elsewhere and the state has identified more than $3 million in savings, but the spending must go to existing or open projects rather than projects that are already completed.
The most detailed account of the state’s spending to date came at a meeting of the Interim Finance Committee, a panel of state lawmakers that makes spending decisions when the Legislature is not in session. The materials also showed a slowdown in pandemic relief fund spending during fiscal year 2025 compared with the year before, and lawmakers had minimal discussion about the spending state of play.
Overall, Nevada set aside the $2.7 billion for nearly 400 projects, and about two-thirds of those initiatives have been completed. The state identified 20 projects with “spending concerns” for the first time—projects that have not spent more than 40% of their allocated dollars—amounting to about $300 million of the unspent funds.
The agencies working on those “spending concerns” projects said the money would be used on time, but only eight of the 20 projects had spending completion estimates before December. One major project among them is a plan to expand broadband capacity throughout rural Nevada, funded through $203 million for broadband infrastructure—of which only 20% had been spent as of December.
Officials said construction for the broadband project cannot begin until permitting on an entire route is completed. They cited the fact that the federal government owns the vast majority of land in Nevada and that the Bureau of Land Management, among other federal agencies involved in permitting, has long been understaffed; they also said buyout offers from the Trump administration last year reduced the federal workforce and exacerbated the issue.
The permitting step was described as nearing completion, with construction taking less time than permitting. For example, the materials said it took the state 18 months to receive a permit for a 2-mile project route in Humboldt County, but construction for that segment took just over one month last fall. In October, Brian Mitchell, then-director of the Governor’s Office of Science, Innovation and Technology, told lawmakers that the broadband project was “ahead of schedule,” adding: “Are we going to be able to get these projects done by Dec. 31, 2026? The answer is yes.”
Another project flagged as spending concerns involves relocating residents of North Las Vegas’ sinking Windsor Park neighborhood. It is being funded through $25 million in pandemic relief funds alongside state dollars, after Nevada Housing Division officials in 2024 asked to stop using pandemic relief money over concerns the effort could not meet spending deadlines; that plan was later scrapped after community members and lawmakers opposed it out of fear the state would not meet its pledge to fund the project another way.
As of early December, about $616,000 of the pandemic relief dollars had been spent for the Windsor Park relocation—about 2% of the allocation. By the end of the year, the amount spent more than doubled to $1.53 million, according to Teri Williams, a spokesperson for the Department of Business and Industry, and the agency said the project was on track for completion by the end of the year, based on meeting materials.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in October that construction had recently begun on the new development but that no homes had started taking shape yet, and that the project received a grading permit in September. Frank Hawkins, identified in the report as the developer of the project, did not respond to a request for more information.