Lawmakers continue squabble over governor's education funding plan

CARSON CITY - Lawmakers disagreed Wednesday on key elements of Gov. Kenny Guinn's K-12 school budget, splitting along party lines on whether to fold class-size reduction funds into Nevada's main education budget.

The disagreement in a budget subcommittee followed Guinn's offer to drop a separate salary savings proposal in an effort to convince Democrats to approve his embattled school funding plan.

But Democratic leaders said that rolling class-size reduction funds into the overall Distributive School Account could undermine the effort to reduce teacher-to-student ratios around the state.

"There's a great deal of personal and moral investment in the (class-size) initiative. I'd hate to see it disappear into the yawning maw of the DSA," Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, said.

But Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said Coffin's comments were "a mischaracterization" of what the governor's proposal is intended to do.

Guinn says putting money earmarked for class-size reduction, special education, counseling and adult schooling into one budget pot would give local school districts more flexibility.

Rolling the $160 million Nevada spends each year for those programs into the main budget for K-12 would provide a better accounting of what the state spends per pupil, administration officials say.

The lawmakers are currently trying to wrap up the $3.6 billion public education budget for the next the two years.

The class-size reduction program would cost $83 million to continue in the first year of the budget and $87 million in the second.

Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, said he didn't see a significant benefit of rolling the class size reduction money into the DSA.

"I think the testimony I heard from the districts was that they were concerned that it might hurt them. To me, the downside risks far outweigh the upside potential," he said.

Later the committee co-chairwoman, Assemblywoman Jan Evans, D-Sparks, said "There's just growing concern that if you're reducing class-size reduction to a line-item in the DSA, it's just like any other item where it doesn't get much attention and after a few sessions, it's just forgotten."

The nine-year-old program has reduced class sizes to 16 pupils to one teacher in some kindergartens and in the first and second grades, and to 19-to-one in the third grade.

The Legislature agreed to some flexibility in the use of the money for the third grade in 1997, allowing districts to provide remedial programs.

Guinn would also like to expand that flexibility to include grades one and two as well - something the subcommittee did agree upon.

"This is not complete flexibility, but only where (school districts) can demonstrate a need for remediating or the need to eliminate team teaching," Raggio said.

The subcommittee also agreed on Guinn's top four spending priorities for estate tax revenue over the next two years.

The approved programs include an additional $3 million a year for remedial programs, about $3 million for teacher training, $300,000 for standards based testing and $900,000 to improve high school proficiency tests.

The subcommittee is likely to reconvene sometime next week to try again to iron out differences.

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