Editorial: Revenues down

Nevada gaming revenues lagged in May, particularly on the Strip. The Gaming Control Board revealed Thursday that state casinos won $958 million that month, which was down 5 percent from the same period in 2015.

The Strip’s take was off a whopping 12 percent and is now down 3.8 percent for the first five months of the year. Overall, state gambling winnings have declined 1.1 percent in 2016.

All this means less tax revenue for Carson City. The Associated Press reports that the state collected $52 million in tax money thanks to the May numbers, but that’s 17 percent below the revenue take in May 2015.

Meanwhile, state Department of Taxation numbers show that through April, the general fund portion of the sales and use taxes was about 1.72 percent below the estimates built into the fiscal year 2016 budget. While a handful of other revenues are exceeding estimates, many are not.

For instance, through the April period of fiscal 2016, the department reports, the cigarette tax is 17.16 percent below projections, the liquor tax is off 4.8 percent and the live entertainment tax has come up 44.3 percent short.

The Nevada economy has made remarkable strides in the past seven years, bouncing back from the torrent of job losses and foreclosures that plagued the state — and particularly Southern Nevada — during the Great Recession. The future appears bright.

But clearly we’ve not yet reached the point where state lawmakers can again craft budgets under the assumption that gaming, sales and other taxes will continue to pour in at greater and greater numbers each year.