In the everyday machinery of state government, most decisions are not dramatic. They are contracts, purchase orders, maintenance requests, and approvals that rarely rise to the level of a news conference or a floor debate. One such decision happened in Nevada recently: a nearly $20,000 contract was approved to fabricate and install replacement drapes in the attorney general’s office and conference room in 2025. The approval did not come from the full Board of Examiners, which is made up of the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. Instead, it came from the board’s clerk, an ex officio role located within the Governor’s Finance Office. That clerk had the authority to approve the contract because it was below $100,000, a threshold that lets smaller purchases bypass the full board’s formal review. The contract, prepared by the Public Works Division, noted that the existing drapery, sheers, and hardware had not been updated for more than thirty years. To anyone walking into those rooms, the curtains might have seemed like an afterthought, but they were literally older than many of the people working there. Over three decades, fabric fades, cords fray, sheers get stained and torn, and the metal hardware that holds everything in place becomes dated and worn. Replacing them is not exactly glamorous, but it is part of what it means to maintain a public building where elected officials and their staff meet, work, and serve constituents during the ordinary course of a day.
Context matters. This curtain contract did not happen in a vacuum. It came two years after the Nevada Legislature approved $811,000 for furniture for the attorney general and his staff, plus $571,000 for the governor’s office. In other words, the state had already begun a larger effort to refresh and refurnish offices in the state’s executive branch. The drapes were a small part of that broader push, but they highlight the sort of details that are easy to overlook when people think about government spending. Wilfred Lewis, who leads the Public Works Division, explained in a May 21 email that the main reason for buying office furniture was proper space utilization and office spaces to efficiently serve constituents. He added that the attorney general’s office’s previous furniture was in very poor condition and disarray. That language is important because it reframes the purchases. This was not a luxury makeover, at least according to the officials responsible for it. It was an effort to give state employees and the public spaces that function well: desks that work, chairs that are safe, conference rooms that look professional, and windows that can be covered properly. State offices are not private homes. They are places where public business is done, where legal cases are discussed, where sensitive conversations happen, and where people seeking justice often sit waiting for meetings. The physical condition of those spaces sends a message about how seriously the government takes its work.
The timing also matters. Lewis noted that the furniture money approved in the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions was aimed at workers returning to the office after working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. For a while, many state offices were empty or mostly empty. People did their jobs remotely, and the physical spaces became almost irrelevant. But when government workers began coming back, offices that had been ignored for years suddenly needed attention. Some furniture had been sitting unused, some had been used heavily before the pandemic, and much of it had simply aged. The pandemic changed how people think about offices. Returning employees expected a workspace that was not just functional but also comfortable and professional. The old draperies in the attorney general’s office, likely dating from an era before remote work, before the smartphone, and before many current employees were even hired, were part of that outdated environment. Replacing them was a way of signaling that the state was serious about bringing workers back and creating offices fit for public service. It is easy to forget how strange the return to the office was. People who had spent years at kitchen tables and home desks had to readjust to shared spaces. Managers had to think about layouts, privacy, technology, and even the small details that make a room feel tolerable. Curtains are one of those details. They control light. They provide privacy. They dampen noise. They make a space feel finished. In a conference room, especially, the difference between a well-covered window and a bare, glaring pane of glass can change the entire atmosphere.
The approval process itself is worth understanding. The Board of Examiners is a powerful, but little-known, body. In Nevada, it is composed of the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. It reviews certain contracts, purchases, and claims involving state money. But not every dollar crosses the board’s table. Contracts below $100,000 can be approved by the board’s clerk instead. That clerk is an ex officio position, meaning it comes with another job, and is housed within the Governor’s Finance Office. In practice, this means a career administrator, not an elected panel, handles many smaller expenditures. This is not unusual; it is a way to keep government moving without overwhelming elected officials with every minor purchase. But it also means that the public may not hear about such spending until after the fact, if at all. The drapes contract, for instance, was small enough that it did not need a vote by the governor, secretary of state, or attorney general. That is not a scandal. It is the way the system is designed. Still, it raises an important question about transparency: when public money is spent, even on something as ordinary as curtains, how do citizens learn about it and who has a chance to question it? In this case, the fact that the contract was documented and reported by a fact-checking organization is part of that learning process. The more people understand how these small decisions are made, the better they can evaluate whether public money is being spent responsibly.
There is also a question of priorities. For a member of the public, seeing a line item for $20,000 in drapes can trigger an automatic eye-roll. Why should an attorney general need fancy curtains? But the details suggest a more practical reality. The existing drapery, sheers, and hardware had not been upgraded for more than thirty years. Fabric breaks down over time. Sunlight fades colors, dust accumulates, and the mechanisms that open and close drapes eventually stop working. In a conference room, where officials meet with attorneys, law enforcement, victims, and community members, the condition of the room reflects on the office. A government office that looks neglected can undermine public confidence, while a clean, well-maintained workspace helps people feel that their government is competent and respectful. No one would argue that state officials need gold-plated fixtures, but there is a difference between luxury and basic maintenance. The $20,000 drapes fall somewhere in the middle, but they are a small fraction of the overall furniture and equipment budget approved by the Legislature. The bigger picture is that Nevada has been trying to bring its state offices into the twenty-first century after years of deferred updates and a seismic shift in work patterns caused by the pandemic. Public works staff are often caught between two pressures: doing the unglamorous maintenance that keeps buildings usable and facing criticism for spending money on anything that looks decorative. Yet a window treatment is not purely decorative. It is part of the infrastructure of a room. It provides shade in the summer, which can help control cooling costs. It provides cover for people who do not want to be watched from outside. It keeps the glare off computer screens and the sun from fading office furniture. These are practical concerns, not extravagances.
Ultimately, this story is about how we understand government spending. It is easy to focus on a single item, especially one as visible and seemingly unnecessary as curtains. But the full context includes decades-old materials, a post-pandemic return to the office, and an administrative process designed to handle routine purchases without taking up the time of the state’s top elected officials. The Nevada Independent, which produced this fact brief in partnership with Gigafact, does the kind of work that helps ground such conversations in facts. This brief responds to trending claims and discussions, offering a bite-sized check of what actually happened. The goal is not to call any particular spending outrageous or wonderful, but to explain it clearly. When people talk about government waste, they often point to odd items like drapes. But the truth is more complicated, and more human. State employees want to work in offices that are not falling apart. Elected officials want to meet with constituents in spaces that do not look like they are frozen in the early 1990s. The people responsible for maintaining public buildings know that even the smallest details, including curtains, matter. So the next time you see a small contract like this, it may be worth pausing before judging. Look at the age of the building, the condition of the furniture, the history of the budget, and the rules that allow administrators to make these calls. You might still question the cost, but you will at least understand the path that led a state office to spend $20,000 on new drapes.