Boulder City Council endorses education bill

By Jean Reid Norman

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 | 9:36 a.m.

The Boulder City Council chambers filled quickly on April 28 with 30 Boulder City High School seniors who attended to get credit for their U.S. government class, but the central debate of the evening was a subject they experience daily: education funding.

The council was being asked by Assemblyman Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, to endorse his Assembly Bill 397, which would allow redevelopment agencies to use their money to provide grants to community schools.

“With possible funding cuts in the schools now, anything we can do to support schools is important,” Councilwoman Andrea Anderson said in moving to support the bill.

Senior Mercedes Trujillo made a pitch to back the bill as well, noting that the students in the council chambers had seen up close the effect of budget cuts on Boulder City schools. She noted that last year, her scalpel broke in biology during a dissection and she was told there was no money to buy new ones.

“Everything is being neglected,” said Trujillo, who elicited laughter when she added, “We’ll be taking care of you guys when you’re older. If you want that, help us out now. We are your future.”

Councilman Travis Chandler then turned the meeting into a lesson on RDA funding, working through a Power Point presentation during which he argued that schools need more than RDA grants for extras such as state-of-the-art equipment and field trips. Schools need the funding the Boulder City RDA has taken from the Clark County School District to pay teacher salaries, he said.

“We are taking money from where it is really needed and spending it on wants,” he said.

When RDAs are created, the tax valuations are frozen, and any increases in revenue from higher property values go to redevelopment funding. Of the $1.1 million in Boulder City’s redevelopment fund, Chandler estimated, $469,000 of it would have gone to the School District.

Another bill, Assembly Bill 458, would return money going to redevelopment agencies to the schools, among its other provisions. A hearing on that bill was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. April 30. It is being videoconferenced to the Grant Sawyer Office Building, 555 E. Washington Ave.

Mayor Roger Tobler said the deeper funding issues would not be addressed by the council’s vote on Hardy’s bill, which he supported.

“This gives us a tool in Boulder City to redirect money to projects and programs,” he said. “If it went back to the Clark County School District, there is no assurance the money would come to Boulder City.”

The council endorsed Hardy’s bill 4-1, with Chandler voting no, but the debate did not end there.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, senior Jennifer Adams told the council members that the high school’s maintenance has been neglected, with the buildings always either too hot or too cold. Books either are outdated, worn out or in short supply, she said, and Bunsen burners cannot be used in science labs because the desks are not the right height.

“Clark County won’t fix it,” Adams said. “We’re such a tiny school, we get shoved under the rug. We need to spend money to fix these things up.”

In the back row, Mallory Weinstein sent a text message as Adams spoke to let her family know the meeting was ending after about an hour and a half.

“It was kind of boring, but I learned a lot – that part of the money goes to schools,” she said.