Nevada / State / 2017 Regular Session

Nev. Rev. Stat. § 417.0187 (added to NRS by 2017) Made the federal disability determination control every state and local veteran benefit

Needs reviewEnactedScope changed

Signed 2017-05-29

Added NRS 417.0187. Notwithstanding any provision of state law to the contrary, for the purpose of determining eligibility for any benefit, program or assistance provided by the State or a local government to a veteran, or a business owned or operated by a veteran, with a service-connected disability, the veteran is deemed to be a veteran with a service-connected disability to the extent determined by the Federal Government, and a certificate from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs or the Department of Defense indicating the service-connected disability and its total percentage or compensation is sufficient evidence both of the disability and of its extent. The section is cross-referenced expressly by NRS 502.072 for hunting and fishing licences, by NRS 482.377 for disabled veteran licence plates, and by the chapter 284 definition of a veteran with a service-connected disability used in the state employment interview quota. Tracked because it binds county assessors and the Department of Motor Vehicles as well as state agencies, because the phrase "or compensation" is the only route by which individual unemployability reaches any Nevada veteran benefit given that no benefit section mentions it, and because it sits in unresolved tension with NRS 361.091, subsection 7, which directs that a property tax exemption be based on "the total of those combined percentages" where more than one permanent service-connected disability is documented. One provision points at the VA combined rating and the other reads as arithmetic addition, and the difference is a whole exemption tier.