Bill > AB336

This bill revises provisions of Nevada's State Purchasing Act related to bidding preferences for state contracts. Currently, the law provides a 5 percent preference for Nevada-based businesses and a separate 5 percent preference for local businesses owned by veterans with service-connected disabilities, with a previous prohibition on combining these preferences. The bill eliminates this prohibition, allowing businesses that qualify under both categories to receive a combined 10 percent preference when bidding on state contracts. Additionally, the bill removes the existing "inverse preference" provision, which previously required the state to apply an equivalent preference penalty to businesses from states that discriminate against Nevada-based businesses in their own state purchasing processes. The changes aim to simplify the bidding process and provide more opportunities for local and veteran-owned businesses to compete for state contracts. The bill makes corresponding technical amendments to various sections of Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) to reflect these changes, including removing references to the eliminated inverse preference and updating language around bid evaluation criteria.