Friday, Oct. 13, 2023 | 2 a.m.
A Nevada legislative panel has given its first approval to a public school district to raise the pay of its teachers and staff through new legislation dedicated to increasing educator pay.
The Humboldt County School District received unanimous approval Wednesday from the Interim Finance Committee of the Nevada Legislature to spread $2,693,020 among its teachers and support professionals through mid-2025.
The raises come out of a $250 million statewide pot created this spring with passage of Senate Bill 231, legislation that set up a matching funding plan to entice Nevada’s public school districts to give raises to teachers and support professionals.
In Humboldt County School District, based in Winnemucca, the pay increases come out to raises of 3.2% this school year and 4.8% next year. They will go into effect with employees’ next paychecks.
According to committee meeting materials, with the SB 231 funds, Humboldt teacher and support professional raises total 19.875% for both employee groups over the next two years.
“Understanding the urgency of our legislators to increase compensation for our staff members, Humboldt County School District is prepared, with the IFC approval, to apply these funds effective Oct. 19 for our certified staff members and Oct. 25 for our classified staff members,” Humboldt Superintendent David Jensen told the committee, a body of state lawmakers that makes various funding decisions between Nevada’s regular biennial legislative sessions.
Humboldt County School District, which has about 420 eligible employees, was the only school district seeking SB 231 money on Wednesday’s committee agenda.
Jensen asked for Humboldt County School District’s full allocated amount of SB 231 funds. Meeting materials show he submitted his request Sept. 11.
“I am glad to see that there weren’t any complications about bringing this money forward in order to help to do those particular raises for all of these very important folks who support our kids every single day,” said Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas, a committee member and a lead SB 231 sponsor.
Jensen added that the SB 231 raises wouldn’t be retroactive to the start of the school year, but since they are coming this far into the fall term, the 3.2% of the first year would feel closer to 4% since it is compressed instead of spreading out.
Humboldt County School District teachers ratified their newest two-year contracts in June and support employees ratified theirs in August. Both had placeholders for SB 231 supplements that said the additions “will sunset effective July 1, 2025, unless extended by the Nevada Legislature.”
The process for getting SB 231 funds in hand started with school districts submitting staffing reports this summer to the Nevada Department of Education, which forwarded them to the Interim Finance Committee so state fiscal analysts could proportionally divvy up the $250 million.
State records show that all 17 of Nevada’s districts, including the Clark County School District, submitted these staffing reports.
On Aug. 24, the fiscal analysts sent a memo to school districts with their calculations showing the maximum each district could receive. CCSD, with about 26,600 eligible employees, will potentially receive the lion’s share of the pot: up to $173.8 million to split among anyone employed by the district who isn’t an administrator.
With this calculation, districts can apply to the Interim Finance Committee for their allotments. The committee decides how much money each district ultimately gets. It is next scheduled to meet in December.
Districts need to submit budgets or union agreements to prove they are committed to giving additional raises beyond previously agreed-upon adjustments.
SB 231 funds have featured prominently in the acrimonious continuing contract battle between CCSD and its teachers union, the Clark County Education Association.
CCSD has said it wants to use the money, but with the same sunset language in the contract that Humboldt and other districts that have settled their contracts have used.
Meanwhile, CCSD has gotten the ball rolling on offering SB 231 raises to other eligible employees.
In September, it tentatively agreed to allot $58 million out of its $174 million maximum to support professionals and $1 million to district police officers.
Those groups’ unions agreed that the raises, in a yet-to-be-determined amount per employee, will come with the sunset date noted.
[email protected] / 702-990-8949 / @HillaryLVSun
