It was a different time.

That’s what Nevada lawmakers say these days when asked about the massive, recession-era tax breaks approved for companies such as Tesla, Amazon and Apple.

It’s also what legislators tend to say when defending new efforts to rein in incentives now that the state has rebounded from the downturn.

As the economy booms, fueling a fast-growing affordable housing crisis, Democrats in Carson City have found it increasingly hard to justify showering subsidies on multibillion-dollar corporations.

They fear some companies already aided by the state have inflated employee salaries and double-dipped in the pool of taxpayer handouts, even while failing to provide promised economic benefits.

A Reno Gazette Journal analysis of public records show they’re right.

Since its creation in 2011, the Governor's Office of Economic Development, or GOED, has directed billions of dollars in tax breaks toward businesses that pledged to bring new jobs and investment to the Silver State.

But audits conducted by state tax officials reveal companies that received tax abatements through GOED generated, at most, 80 percent of the jobs — and less than 30 percent of the capital investment — promised on their initial tax break application.

GOED doesn't seem to have pressed businesses to do much better than that.

Nearly two-thirds of applications approved by the agency failed to meet at least one of the benchmarks to collect an abatement in the first place, according to a Reno Gazette Journal analysis of GOED documents dating back to 2009.

The RGJ found more than two dozen non-compliant businesses were audited by state tax officials and billed for the incentives they had already collected. But another two dozen applied for, and were granted, multiple rounds of incentives from the state, including a few that were flagged for non-compliance.

Here's what our analysis found

Many companies did not pay high enough wages : Some 37 percent of Nevada's 284 tax abatement applications did not offer employees the statewide average wage, as annually determined by state officials.

: Some 37 percent of Nevada's 284 tax abatement applications did not offer employees the statewide average wage, as annually determined by state officials. Not enough capital investment: At least 22 companies fell short of capital investment requirements, which force companies to spend anywhere between $250,000 and $1 million in the state, depending on whether the business plans to locate in a rural or urban county.

At least 22 companies fell short of capital investment requirements, which force companies to spend anywhere between $250,000 and $1 million in the state, depending on whether the business plans to locate in a rural or urban county. Too few jobs created: Another 51 companies failed to create the minimum number of new jobs needed to collect a tax abatement. Minimum job creation tallies range from 10 to 50 employees, depending on where the business plans to locate.

What was promised

Biennial tax abatement reports from GOED show that since late 2009, state officials agreed to forgo more than $393 million in future sales, use and property taxes in a bid to attract or retain companies.

In exchange, companies said they would create about 19,900 high-paying jobs and at least $7.1 billion in new capital investment.

What actually happened

Auditors found they actually delivered 15,732 jobs and $1.9 billion in investment — far less than contractually agreed-upon totals.

Companies under-delivered on investment in each of the past nine years, and came up short on promised jobs in all but one of those years, according to the GOED report released in January.

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So why did GOED approve applicants that failed to meet state standards?

Prior to a law passed in 2017, the agency was allowed to approve abatements for companies that only met two of four major wage, job creation, employee health insurance and capital investment criteria spelled out in state law.

Today, applicants are supposed to check three of those boxes. But you wouldn't know that from the agency's incentive application form, which still only asks companies to meet the pre-2017 criteria.

GOED did not directly answer questions about whether or how it pushed companies to meet the state's performance measures.

Agency spokesman Keith Paul said businesses work with local economic development officials to fill out their incentive applications. GOED simply ensures submissions comply with the law.

"While the application form itself may not have changed, GOED’s processes in accepting applications did," Paul said when asked about the agency's apparently outdated paperwork.

He said officials have clawed back tax breaks from every single company that did not meet state benchmarks. The agency did not provide requested specifics on those claw-backs.

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Job creators are not a cheap date

GOED has long been willing to pay a premium for new jobs.

The agency's latest report to lawmakers shows it was prepared to hand over an average of $88,611 for every job companies said they would create through abatements over the past 10 years. That's about $31,600 more than the state’s median household income.

One of the main drivers of the sky-high abatement-per-job total is eBay, which was approved for more than $13.6 million in tax breaks to create a total of two jobs as part of a data center expansion in Las Vegas.

Apple, as part of its arrival in Washoe County, received almost $1.6 million in tax breaks for every job created at its Reno warehouse. The average wage paid to the warehouse’s 35 workers was $25 per hour.

Lawmakers have long sounded the alarm over the impact such subsidies can have on state and local government tax revenues.

They've also raised pointed questions about double-dipping.

Take Amonix, a California-based solar panel manufacturer that received $2.9 million in state-approved tax abatements after promising more than 600 new jobs and $35.6 million in capital investment. The company shuttered its North Las Vegas solar plant within a year of receiving a second round of tax breaks from the state.

Those handouts were approved despite the company’s failure to meet performance measures tied to a first round of incentives received in 2010. In the end, Amonix produced only about half of the jobs and investment it promised the Silver State.

It was far from the only company to return to the subsidy trough.

Scientific Games, the multibillion-dollar Las Vegas-based slot machine maker, was approved for five separate tax break packages, totaling more than $2 million in taxpayer dollars, since 2015.

Switch, a Las Vegas-based data center company, won four separate abatements totaling more than $54.7 million — or almost $693,000 for each of the 79 jobs the company pledged to create.

Tesla, by far the highest-profile recipient of state subsidies, has so far fallen about $1 billion short of the roughly $5.5 billion capital investment was projected to bring to Nevada by 2018, according to independent audit completed in October. Economic analysts projected work on the company's sprawling Gigafactory outside Sparks would create 6,500 jobs between 2015 and 2018. Auditors found the company has so far produced 4,247 jobs, or about 2,200 fewer than originally predicted when the project was presented to state lawmakers in 2014.

But auditors found the electric automaker has far exceeded the $26-per-hour average employee wage agreed upon five years ago.

Economic development officials pushed back against 'double-dipping' reform

Top Nevada Democrats, including Gov. Steve Sisolak, agree the state needs to “review and revise” its approach to tax breaks. But it may be awhile before they settle on a way to tackle the topic.

That was made clear during the latest legislative session, which surfaced sharp divides over a pair of relatively modest economic development reforms.

One, Assembly Bill 444, was eventually vetoed by Sisolak. The other, Assembly Bill 400, faced stiff resistance from GOED itself.

Assemblywoman Teresa Benitez-Thompson, D-Reno, was among the first to feel the blowback.

Heading into the session, Benitez-Thompson said she noticed a pattern where businesses were applying for, and receiving, extended tax break packages every two years, apparently without drawing the attention of economic development officials.

AB 400, her effort to stop doubling-dipping, also aimed to limit GOED’s ability to give away tax dollars that are supposed to benefit school districts.

The agency immediately fought back.

“Nevada, as you know, competes with our surrounding states and companies have a choice to either be here or be there,” Kris Sanchez, GOED’s interim director, told lawmakers during an April committee hearing on the measure. “We want them to stay in the state and expand here.”

Lawmaker worries state sold 'a bill of goods'

Benitez-Thompson said she was “troubled” by that logic. The state, she added, can still offer substantial tax breaks to companies without dipping into school sales tax dollars.

A bipartisan panel of lawmakers came to her defense, including several who said the state was overdue for a sweeping re-examination of tax break programs.

In the end, AB 400 passed with near-unanimous support. It was signed into law last month.

Benitez-Thompson hopes it’s merely the start of something much bigger.

“It’s definitely time to look back and say: ‘Is this the bill of goods we’ve been sold?’” she asked.

Nevada Democrats are divided on economic development reform

Benitez-Thompson and others seem unlikely to stop pushing for a closer look at that "bill of goods" — even after Sisolak vetoed a bill that would have created a legislative committee to do just that.

The first-term Democratic governor last month said he felt the oversight panel created under AB 444 would be redundant, making it clear in his veto message that he thought GOED was perfectly capable of watchdogging state subsidies without the Legislature’s help.

Then, two weeks later, he abruptly told GOED board members that he intends to begin his own “closer review” of the agency’s abatements.

Sisolak’s office did not provide requested details on that effort.

In a statement, GOED said it welcomed the re-examination.

"Tax incentives are a tool that must be wielded with care, and a review of the current system will ensure they work for all Nevadans going forward," Paul, the agency's spokesman, wrote in an email to the RGJ. "We look forward to working with the governor's office on reshaping GOED and its priorities so they better fit the current economic landscape."

GOED reformers plan to revive their push for an agency oversight board in 2021.

James DeHaven is the politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal. He covers campaigns, the Nevada Legislature and everything in between. Support his work by subscribing to RGJ.com right here.