This Is Reno obtained two-and-a-half years of City of Reno public records on discretionary spending to see how the Mayor and City Council members spent those funds. Hours were dedicated to poring over numerous travel receipts, city council donations, candidate disclosures and other documents. Findings reveal that some council members have used large portions of their budgets for travel, including activities that may violate city policies. Expenses also have unclear benefits for the Reno community.
This is part six in a 10-part series, which is being published over the coming days. Read the complete series here. Subscribe here to get access to all This Is Reno articles.
The City of Reno, like many municipalities, is a member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a membership that costs taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. Expenses to the organization have been as low as $12,242 a year—the cost the city pays to be a member of the organization—in fiscal years 2021 and 2022.
The 2023 fiscal year saw a jump in USCM expenses to nearly $50,000. Three-quarters of that was for travel. Assistant City Manager Ashley Turney told This Is Reno that the city was “required” to be a member of the organization.
“The U.S. Conference of Mayors is an advocacy organization focused on hundreds of cities throughout the country,” Turney said. “It’s a requirement that your city over 30,000 be part of it.”
This Is Reno could find nothing to substantiate Turney’s claim that cities are required to join, and city officials did not respond to clarify Turney’s claim.
The Conference’s website says this: “The Conference is a dues-based organization. Cities with a population of 30,000 and larger are eligible for full membership. Cities under 30,000 may join as a service city.”
The organization, in part, works to engage with the White House and federal agencies on behalf of cities across the country. Mayors and city staff can attend conferences and meetings that, according to Assistant City Manager Ashley Turney, “cover everything from revitalization efforts to climate change efforts to leveraging technology for better services.
“You name it—crime, policing, women’s reproductive rights, finding additional opportunities for women to be in politics, small business development, sewer, infrastructure, roads—are a part of these conferences,” Turney said.
Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve has played an active role in the USCM, serving on its advisory board and chairing several committees. In June 2021, she sought nomination and was voted in as USCM’s second vice president. At the close of the USCM annual meeting in Reno in June 2022—just before the 2023 fiscal year began—she was elected as vice president and chair of a mental health committee. Schieve became president in June 2023, a role she’ll maintain until June 2024.
Turney said that a leadership role within the organization brings with it more exposure, opportunities for networking, visibility and potential financial support from sponsors and federal agencies.
Schieve, in an email to This Is Reno, agreed.
“We have elevated Reno’s national profile, dispelling outdated negative perceptions and positioning ourselves as a competitive candidate for various partnerships and funding opportunities,” she wrote.
As an example, Turney said Schieve’s position helped draw the USCM to Reno for its June 2022 conference when the chair for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) attended and was able to see how the city has used NEA grant funding. Turney credits that exposure to supporting arts funding efforts.
“It’s a requirement that your city over 30,000 be part of [the U.S. conference of Mayors].”– Assistant City Manager Ashley Turney
Schieve said the city has received more than $1 million in NEA grants since 2019. A little under $800,000 came in the form of CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act grants as part of the COVID-19 economic recovery. Smaller grants of $15,000-$35,000 were provided for public art projects in midtown, north valleys, Oddie Boulevard, the Truckee River and East Fourth Street.
Schieve credits her participation with USCM to a number of other grants that have channeled money to the region, including $8.9 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation for a safety improvement project along Sixth Street. Officials at Washoe Regional Transportation Commission in December sent a press release announcing the funding, which officials said the agency applied for and worked with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen to secure. There’s no mention of Schieve’s hand in the effort.
The $51.5 million Reno received through ARPA funding is also the result of the city’s USCM membership, Schieve wrote.
“USCM has been pivotal in amplifying the voices of mayors on critical legislative fronts such as the Cares Act, ARPA, and the bipartisan infrastructure act,” she wrote. “Through our participation, we advocated for direct allocation of funds to cities, ensuring that resources are efficiently directed to where they are needed most, bypassing bureaucratic hurdles at the state and federal level all because mayors were at the table making sure our cities’ voices were heard.”
As Schieve became more involved with the organization, travel expenses mounted as she traveled to up to four meetings per year—both winter and summer conferences, as well as executive leadership meetings—often taking one or more staff members with her.
“You’ll find a lot of mayors bring staff and detail just because of time constraints."-Assistant City Manager Ashley Turney
Turney said it’s common for city staff to attend the USCM conferences and meetings to provide various support services to the mayors. Schieve added that some mayors attend meetings with “larger entourages of staff and security details,” as opposed to her “small yet effective team.”
“You’ll find a lot of mayors bring staff and detail just because of time constraints,” Turney said. “She would be attending as a mayor, normally, and would have some staffing requirements. Being president comes with more obligations, more stage time. There are often times when we are helping prep for background or going over talking points. There are times if she’s on stage or meeting with someone she can’t be in multiple places at once, so sometimes I will take meetings for her if she’s unable to meet.”
“It will look different when she’s no longer president,” Turney said, adding that travel obligations and staffing needs will be reduced.
Schieve was vice president of the USCM from June 2022 through May 2023. She and city staff attended multiple meetings in Miami and Washington, D.C., during that time. The city had to pay for these trips in full for a total of $30,439.
“Despite the increase in travel expenses, it's crucial to recognize the importance of these roles in effectively representing our city and fostering positive relationships with leaders from other cities, the federal government and internationally,” Shieve said.
The city also paid for Council member Kathleen Taylor and then-new Parks and Recreation Director Nathan Ullyot to attend the June 2023 USCM meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Ullyot stayed in the conference hotel, and his trip totaled $2,400. Taylor, however, spent $300 more and stayed in a two-bedroom short-term rental that had room for eight people, nearly two miles away. Schieve approved her travel request and the short-term rental.
For meetings during Schieve’s time as president, from June 2023 through June 2024, Turney said USCM covered most of the travel costs for her and two city staff, so costs to the city were reduced to meals and incidental expenses.
As president, Schieve and her support team traveled to Columbus, Ohio, in June 2023; Coronado Island, near San Diego, in September 2023; Bristol, United Kingdom in October 2023; and Washington, D.C., in January 2024. Other trips during her term include Santa Barbara, California and Austin, Texas. She’ll turn over the reins to the next president in June 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri. 
Leveraging conference travel
Some travel to USCM meetings included visits to other cities before returning home. On one of the two Miami trips, Schieve and Turney detoured to Washington, D.C., before returning to Reno to “meet with diplomats and government officials.”
No itinerary or list of meetings was provided with travel documents or the expense report for the trip. Schieve said by email that the pair met with Chris Gilio of CapitalEdge, the city’s lobbyist in Washington D.C.
Travel costs, including airfare and hotel to the June 2023 USCM conference in Columbus, Ohio, were covered by USCM for Schieve and her support staff, Turney and Council Relations Manager Jenica Finnegan.
However, following the conference, Turney and Finnegan traveled to Detroit, Michigan, from June 6-10, 2023. Turney said that trip was to meet with other mayors in Michigan to understand some of the parks programs in their communities.
Turney said the pair rented a car to get to Detroit and stayed in a short-term rental because it was more economical than flying and staying in a hotel. She included $1,532 on her expense report for four nights at the short term rental, plus the rental car, fuel and parking fees.
Schieve said Turney and Finnegan visited with officials from Detroit, Dearborn, Orion Township and Rochester Hills.
“We met with three or four different cities in Michigan to look at some of their parks programs and some of the revitalization,” Turney said. “You learn a lot by seeing how cities deal with it.”
She recalled one park they visited that didn’t have any geese—or the poop that comes with them—and learned that the city planted a specific type of grass that geese don’t like, which resulted in the fowl avoiding those areas.
“Little tidbits like that when you go to see cities in person that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to acknowledge… [That mayor] picked that up from a city he visited in New England,” Turney added.
Ullyot, Reno’s parks and recreation director, also attended the June conference in Columbus, Ohio, but he did not join the parks tours in Michigan.
“While I always strive to include relevant department heads in learning opportunities to explore best practices, in this instance Parks Director Nathan Ullyot was not included because the invitation was extended by a specific city that I work with through the U.S. Conference of Mayors,” Schieve said.
She did not respond to emails asking to clarify which mayor and why the invitation would have excluded Reno's parks director.
Read part seven tomorrow.
