The Northern Nevada Water Planning Commission and the Western Regional Water Commission reviewed results from an annual priority-setting session and a draft professional services budget for fiscal year 2027 at their joint Nov. 5, 2025 meeting and voted to accept the priorities and direct staff to incorporate the draft budget into the WRWC tentative FY27 budget.

Kim, the commissions' program manager, presented the priority-setting process and results, explaining members used a star-ranking tool to score projects across focus areas. "If you look in your board packet, the number one was the wastewater and effluent management piece," Kim said, summarizing the commission's ranking. Kim also reported financial figures: FY25 total revenues of a little over $2.0 million and expenses of about $1.5 million; for the first quarter of FY26, revenues were $525,000 and expenses $176,000. She said the audit had no findings and described the commission's financial position as stable.

Commissioners reviewed project lists and budget allocations, noting the professional services detail in the packet. The draft tentative professional services budget in the packet showed the top line items aligning with the priority results, with wastewater-related work identified as a top professional-services priority for the coming fiscal year. Commissioners moved to accept the priority-setting results and the draft budget and to recommend that WRWC incorporate them into the tentative FY27 budget; the commission's motion passed unanimously. WRWC then moved to accept the same results and directed staff to incorporate them into its FY27 tentative budget; that motion also passed unanimously.

Board members and staff said the contingency funds available in the WRWC budget provide flexibility to scope and add projects over time, and commissioners asked staff to bring detailed scopes and cost estimates back for specific projects as they are developed. The program manager noted contingency funding of approximately $800,000 and said that contingency could fluctuate based on end-of-year balances and budget finalization.

The commissions also approved meeting schedules for upcoming months and heard various project updates in the program manager's report, including Cold Springs water-balance modeling, source-control monitoring for enhanced purification planning, and community recycled-water education efforts.