About

Responsibilities of the State Controller

The Controller is the Chief Fiscal Officer (CFO) of the state and is responsible for administering the state’s accounting system, registering vendors, settling all claims against the state and collecting debts owed to the state. The Controller processes and records the state’s financial transactions, conducts the final audit and ensures compliance with our Nevada Constitution, federal laws and state statutes. The Controller also provides the citizens, state agencies, local governments and legislators with accurate and impartial financial information. Nevada’s State Controller protects the citizens’ money by ensuring that it is properly accounted for and spent in the most efficient and cost effective manner at all times. The Controller has a statutory charge to recommend plans for: support of public credit; promoting frugality and economy; better management of the state’s fiscal affairs; and better understanding of them.

The State Controller is one of the six Constitutional Officers of the State and is elected to a four-year term. The authority of the Controller is set by the Nevada State Constitution Article 5, Section 19 and Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 227.

Mission of the Controller's Office

To advance accountability, continuity and efficiency in the state’s financial operations.

Publications of the Controller’s Office

All of these reports are available through this website.

Accomplishments and Current Projects in the Controller’s Office

Our state had been vulnerable to the loss of our financial data and ability to function if a disaster struck our State Capitol. The Controller’s Office has established a fully operational disaster recovery site in Las Vegas for our statewide accounting system. This protects the state’s financial records and allows us to continue our financial operations in the event of a serious emergency.

Nevada historically has been losing money in the form of unpaid debts owed to the state. In 2017, we went live with a modern debt collection system that has started to show positive results. This system has allowed our team to automate first notices to debtors, produce reports automatically instead of using Excel spreadsheets. It will also allow for bank levies and administrative garnishments to further enhance collections of revenues owed to the state. We encourage anyone who owes money to the state to be proactive and contact our office prior to being subjected to a garnishment or bank levy.

Because most citizens are not accountants or financial professionals, we have developed a 24-page Controller’s Annual Report (CAR), also known as the Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR). This report is written in plain language so that all of our citizens can have a basic understanding our state’s finances. This report is distributed as hard copies to universities, schools, libraries and senior centers. It is available virtually on this website, and a hard copy can be obtained from the Controller’s Office in the Capital Building in Carson City; or we will mail a hard copy to any citizen who requests one. It contains numerous tables, charts and graphs.

The State Controller’s office is in the final stages of development of a Business Intelligence system for use by all state agencies. This program, when completed, will be under the original budget by almost $600,000 and will provide more comprehensive reporting for all state government agencies.

The Controller’s Office is also working with the departments of administration and finance on SMART21, the statewide initiative to upgrade the state accounting, human relations and payroll systems. The last time an upgrade to the accounting system was completed was 1998, and the initiative is exploring software as a solution (SAAS) products and cloud data storage. The State Controller is one of three voting members on the executive steering committee for this project, and several members of the Controller’s Office team are participating in the business process reengineering portion of this important project that will bring the Silver State into the 21st Century.