A television reporter asked the governor of Nevada about his pay. Joe Lombardo said he doesn't "get paid very much."

Here is what the public record says.

Lombardo earned $182,000 in wages and benefits as governor in 2023. On top of that, he collects a pension from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. That pension paid him $199,175 last year, according to Transparent Nevada, the public database of Nevada government pay.

Two checks. Both from taxpayers. Put those two numbers together and you're over $380,000 a year.

The average Nevadan earns just under $60,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nevadans work more and earn less than people in any state that borders them.

So the governor makes about six times what the people he governs make. And he told a reporter he doesn't get paid very much.

His spokesman's explanation: "While he could have phrased his remarks more clearly, his point was simple: he didn't choose this work for the salary."

How he ended up with two checks

The pension is not a mistake or a loophole he tripped into. It is the result of a choice he made the moment voters gave him more power.

Lombardo spent decades at Metro and rose to assistant sheriff. In 2014, Clark County voters elected him sheriff — the top job at the department. So he retired from his old job, started drawing his police pension, and then took office as sheriff, collecting a second public salary.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal caught this in a 2017 investigation into what it called double dipping. Reporters found the practice was costing Nevada taxpayers at least $23 million a year, and that two dozen elected officials were collecting a salary and a pension at the same time. Lombardo was one of the three the paper singled out by name. He was collecting nearly $325,000 a year in salary and pension combined.

Most public retirees in Nevada can't do this. If they go back to work more than part-time, their pension stops. But state law carves out an exception for elected officials — and for jobs a government agency decides to label "critical."

Edward Zelinsky, a law professor who studies pensions, put it plainly to the Review-Journal:

"We don't give them pensions so they can double dip. We give them pensions so they can retire."

Lombardo defended it. "I had a very good career serving the residents of Clark County for 27.5 years, and I am being appropriately compensated after retiring from that job," he told the paper.

That is a real argument, and it deserves a fair hearing. He did work those years. He did earn a pension. Nothing here is illegal.

But keep it next to the other thing he said. He is being "appropriately compensated" — and he doesn't "get paid very much." Both of those came out of the same mouth.

His pay went up. His police force went down.

While Lombardo was sheriff, his own salary climbed steadily.

• 2015: $159,201
• 2017: $168,857
• 2022: $192,000, according to the financial disclosure form he filed himself

That's a raise of about $33,000 over his time in the job — roughly 21 percent — on top of the pension.

Now look at what Metro looked like on his way out the door.

In April 2022, with one foot already in the governor's race, Lombardo personally walked Metro's budget request in front of the department's Fiscal Affairs Committee. He asked for more than $715 million — an 8.17 percent increase, the biggest jump in years. In his own letter, Lombardo admitted the request was "considerably larger than recent years."

The request included no money for a single additional police officer.

And Metro was short. Back in 2016, Lombardo himself had championed the Clark County sales tax increase known as the More Cops Fund. It came with a promise: two officers for every 1,000 residents. By the time he was asking for that $715 million, Metro had been below that ratio for the entire fiscal year and didn't expect to hit it again until June 2023.

Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft said it out loud at the meeting:

"We're not meeting that obligation."

Lombardo's answer on when Metro would catch up was that it was "incumbent upon the community." He said fewer people were applying, and blamed a shift in how people feel about police.

He pushed the sales tax to put more cops on the street. Metro never got to the number he promised. His own pay went up anyway.

The fiscal hawk act

None of this stopped him from campaigning as the guy who makes the hard money calls.

In September 2021, Lombardo posted this:

"As Sheriff of NV's largest county I'm no stranger to tough decisions that affect a budget's bottom line. I know NV can do better &, as Gov. why I've vowed to veto any new tax increase."

A year earlier, in a guest column for the Las Vegas Sun, he had warned that COVID budget cuts could "hamper our ability to police." He argued that cutting police funding would hurt the very communities asking for change.

So: budgets are tight, cuts are dangerous, and he's the man who knows how to make tough calls. Also, he needs 8 percent more money, zero new officers will be hired, and his salary and pension both go up.

He didn't tell us everything about his money, either

There is one more piece of this.

Nevada requires officials and candidates to file a financial disclosure every year. The point is simple: let voters see where an official's money comes from, so they can spot conflicts of interest.

Lombardo married Donna Alderson in 2015. She worked as a commercial real estate broker at CBRE. He left her employment off his 2016, 2017 and 2018 disclosure statements. In 2019, he didn't file at all by the January 15 deadline. Under state law that carried a minimum $2,000 penalty.

He wasn't fined. In 2019 a deputy secretary of state said the office couldn't remember fining any public official over a disclosure form. And the Secretary of State's office told the Nevada Current it doesn't actually review these forms for accuracy — there's no one on staff to do it.

"We rely on the public checking on everybody," a spokeswoman said.

So we're checking.

"I can't control that"

Two days ago, the Nevada Current reported what Lombardo is telling Nevadans now about the cost of living.

Asked at a July meet and greet how he'd deal with grocery and housing prices, the governor said: "There's a big difference between the federal space and the local space, right? And when we talk about affordability and inflation rates and everything, I can't control that."

He went further. "Any politician who stands before you and says, 'Well, I'm going to fix inflation.' That's bullshit."

This is the same man who won his first term by blaming Governor Steve Sisolak for the national economy. "Let me be clear: this recession is a direct result of Sisolak and Biden's disastrous economic leadership," he tweeted in 2022. Asked why the national economy was Sisolak's fault but not his, his campaign spokeswoman would not answer.

He also isn't powerless. Governors have levers — tax policy, housing supply, utility rates. Lombardo vetoed a record 87 bills last session, including one that would have expanded paid family and medical leave, one that would have provided free school meals after pandemic funding ran out, one that would have temporarily capped rent for seniors and Social Security recipients, and one that would have blocked drug companies from charging more than the Medicare price.

Meanwhile, his political operation has never been healthier. The Lombardo-affiliated Better Nevada PAC raised $12 million in a single quarter this year.

The pattern

Three days ago we wrote about the 15 seconds it took Lombardo to talk his way out of a traffic ticket — he interrupted the sergeant to say "I'm Joe Lombardo," said "come on, man," and drove off.

It's the same shape as this story. There's a rule, and there's a version of the rule for him.

Nevadans pay a sales tax he pushed for a staffing level Metro never hit. Nevadans file the disclosure forms nobody checks. Nevadans get told inflation is somebody else's job. And the man saying it collects a salary and a pension from the same taxpayers — and says he doesn't get paid very much.

Source

Lombardo defers to feds on affordability, inflation issues: 'I can't control that' — Dana Gentry, Nevada Current, August 4, 2026, and $715 million: LVMPD to request 8% increase in budget, but no new officers — April Corbin Girnus, Nevada Current, April 26, 2022. Photo: Lombardo campaign, via the Nevada Current.