RJ writer Mary Hynes’ 5 top stories of 2025

A scandal in Clark County government, a meltdown at a longtime nonprofit and a million-dollar benefit for first responders were among the stories uncovered by investigative reporter Mary Hynes in 2025.

Official’s wife on lucrative government project

A year ago, Clark County awarded a $10 million construction management contract to a team that included the wife of its construction manager, fueling concerns about a conflict of interest and lack of transparency.

Construction manager Jimmy Floyd was one of five people evaluating proposals for the contract. The winning proposal specified that the firm of Floyd’s wife, Raquel Floyd, stood to make $1.5 million on the contract. Observers of the evaluation process said it did not follow the usual protocols and gave preferential treatment to her firm, Rock Solid Project Solutions.

The county did its own investigation, suspending and then firing Jimmy Floyd. It began requiring more disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. The state ethics commission will be ruling on an ethics complaint.

But questions remain. What exactly did the county find in its investigation? So far, the county has refused to release its investigation reports. More to come on this in 2026.

Nonprofit insiders question payments to CEO’s wife

Citing the federal shutdown, 40-year-old Lutheran Social Services of Nevada in October suspended its operations, including a food pantry, hot meals for seniors and other services.

But former employees and board members said the nonprofit’s financial crisis was long in the making. They cited what they see as questionable practices —including payments to CEO Tim Bedwell’s wife, Michele Bedwell, and her business partner Adam Kent — for prompting their resignations more than a year ago.

In September, the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority terminated a $10 million contract for the nonprofit to provide relocation support services to residents of Marble Manor, a low-income housing complex.

The Housing Authority canceled the contract after paying the nonprofit almost $600,000. The nonprofit’s former program manager said the contract was mismanaged, a claim that Tim Bedwell disputes.

Is a win for retired cops and firefighters a loss for taxpayers?

Under Nevada’s heart and lung law, retired firefighters, police officers and arson investigators generally are eligible only for medical benefits when diagnosed with a disabling condition in retirement.

But a Nevada Court of Appeals ruling in April paved the way for some retired first responders to also receive disability compensation, at a potential cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers.

Peggy Munson, the retired firefighter whose case was ruled upon, said the decision was the right thing to do for first responders. But was it a win for taxpayers? Geoffrey Lawrence of think tank Nevada Policy says no, and that Nevada’s benefit is out of step with other states’ and could be abused.

A first responder diagnosed with disabling heart or lung disease in their 50s might receive between $1.2 million and $1.5 million in lifetime disability compensation, apart from medical costs, workers compensation attorneys say.

Addiction treatment centers raise alarm about Medicaid denials

Two Las Vegas addiction treatment centers claimed that UnitedHealthcare Health Plan of Nevada Medicaid was denying or reducing services to a dangerous degree, putting patients at risk of harming themselves or others through their continued substance abuse.

Health Plan of Nevada called the allegations “unfounded.”

The allegations by Virtue Recovery Centers and CrossRoads of Southern Nevada came at a time when Americans’ outrage at health insurance companies over denials had erupted, as demonstrated by the sometimes-gleeful reaction on social media to the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Insuring Medicaid beneficiaries is big business — and costly for taxpayers— with one in four Nevada residents insured through the program. Four private insurers hold multiyear contracts for a combined $11 billion to cover the health care of more than 800,000 Medicaid recipients in Nevada’s urban counties of Clark and Washoe.