Board reluctantly OKs potential school cuts

By Emily Richmond

Wednesday, May 7, 2003 | 10:55 a.m.

A visibly frustrated Clark County School Board voted 4-3 this morning to approve a potential budget that would include $110 million in cuts.

The board members who voted for approval -- President Sheila Moulton, Denise Brodsky, Susan Brager-Wellman and Mary Beth Scow -- said they were doing so in the hope of sending a message to the Legislature that the quality of education in Clark County would be drastically harmed if Gov. Kenny Guinn's proposal for new and increased taxes is not approved.

"This is not something any of us want to do," Brodsky said. "I am heartbroken. I am discouraged."

With today's vote the board has approved two versions of its budget for the 2003-04 fiscal year, which begins July 1. The first draft, based on the governor's requested budget, was approved last month at $1.4 billion. The version approved today was $1.3 billion.

The two versions are necessary because the district won't know how much it will have to spend until the legislative session ends in June.

But that doesn't excuse the district from its May 21 deadline to submit a balanced budget to the state, Moulton said. The board will hold a second public hearing on the budget that day, as required by law.

Board member Larry Mason, who with Shirley Barber and Ruth Johnson voted against the budget, said he would not do the Legislature's dirty work for it.

"We're showing our hand and making it a lot easier for them to do what they want to do," Mason said. "Why can't we tell them to give us what we need to run the district the right way?"

Moulton said Tuesday she believed lawmakers will ultimately vote to "appropriately fund" schools and no cuts would be needed. The funding is tied to a debate on tax increases.

"So much of what we're dealing with here is temporary, and there are many unknowns," Moulton said. "I've called what we're going through cruel and unusual punishment for our students, parents and staff, and I still stand by that."

Johnson said she had too many questions about the potential impact of the proposed cuts, particularly switching to a four-day school week, which would save $20 million.

"I have no way of knowing how this will be managed. I can't even see how it would work, particularly given the large number of our students in year-round school." she said.

Brager-Wellman said she voted in favor of the budget not because she supported the cuts, but because she believed the district had a legal obligation to meet the state-set deadline for submitting a budget draft.

"This is a yes under duress," she said. "We should be adding $300 million to this budget, easily, not going backward."

The board accepted recommendations from district officials that spared little -- not graduation ceremonies, the Gifted and Talented Education program or middle school sports.

The list also included increasing elementary class sizes from 30 to 31 and secondary class sizes from 32 to 33, for a savings of $6.8 million. The list called for a 10 percent reduction in central administration and support staff, saving $3 million, as well as reducing administrators at school sites for $3.2 million.

The School Board kept an option to revisit the budget after the Legislature decides on funding to restore programs if the money is available.

The newly released list will likely motivate parents to keep the pressure on their lawmakers, Richard Ziser, co-chairman of Nevada Concerned Citizens, said.

"If you want to get parents riled up, don't talk about buying fewer office supplies, talk about middle school sports," Ziser said Tuesday. "Since the session started the district has been rallying hard for the tax increases, and all this budget talk seems geared to the same goal."

The district's lobbying efforts have included a series of public meetings, where surveys were collected asking what areas people wanted to see protected, reduced or eliminated. The list being considered by the School Board today incorporates several of the public recommendations, including reducing the Community College High School program and cutting back on central administration staff and services.

Assemblyman Joe Hardy, R-Las Vegas, said that by including parents, students and staff in their budget struggles, the school district has succeeded in "humanizing" what might otherwise be a tangle of numbers.

"If the crisis is portrayed in a way that people can understand and relate to, such as the loss of music programs or sports, people will be more motivated to speak up," said Hardy, a member of the Assembly Education Committee. "Those are the people who will come to the Assembly and come to the Senate and contact their elected officials."

In the past three years the district has already cut more than $90 million, leaving little room left for trimming, officials said.

"The cuts we're talking about now are just as deep as we can go. We're not talking about to the bone, we're practically at amputation here," Brodsky said. "We've been fortunate up until now that we've been able to keep our cuts away from the classroom, but now every kid is going to be impacted in some way."

The goal, Superintendent Carlos Garcia said, is to do what's best for the largest number of students.

"We have only 5,000 kids in Gifted and Talented Education, and it's costing us $7 million," Garcia said. "Meanwhile we have a quarter-million other students to worry about. That doesn't mean we don't think GATE is a tremendous addition to our district and something I personally would hate to see gone."

The $110 million in cuts could include eliminating about 890 positions, including 64 library assistants, 35 central administration support staff jobs and 138 literacy specialists.

Employees whose jobs are eliminated would be reassigned to other open positions based on their qualifications, said George Ann Rice, associate superintendent of human resources for the school district. A literacy specialist with teaching credentials would be returned to the classroom, Rice said.

Rice said her office is holding off on offers to job applicants until the list of potential cuts is finalized. Any jobs left over that cannot be filled with existing employees will be opened to outside candidates, Rice said.

The largest savings, $20 million for switching to a four-day school week, may not even be allowable, Keith Rheault, deputy superintendent of the Nevada Education Department, said.

Current law requires school districts to provide 180 days of instruction, Rheault said. Under some circumstances 165 days is allowed, but a four-day week would amount to just 144 days of instruction during a normal, 36-week school year. Adding on instructional minutes to the remaining four days would not be enough to satisfy the requirement, Rheault said.

Senate Bill 59, which would give school districts more flexibility in setting schedules, was passed by the Human Resources and Facilities Committee March 12 and awaits its next hearing. A similar bill failed to make it out of committee in 1997.

Only a handful of states have school districts with a four-day week, said Rheault, who researched the topic in response to the pending legislation. And most of those are small, rural districts, a far cry from Clark County, the nation's sixth largest with more than 250,000 students.

Beverly Mathis, principal of Booker Elementary School, an at-risk school, said she has enough trouble getting students to focus when they return to class Monday after a regular weekend. As for extending the instructional hours on the remaining days, Mathis said she already does that, offering tutoring programs and homework help.

"Some much of what we do is playing catch-up, because our children come to school so unprepared to learn," Mathis said. "Our students need to be in school five days a week, not four. In some cases, it should probably be six days."

There's also the question of who would supervise children if they stayed home on the fifth day, Mathis said.

"Would working parents have to find day care? Would kids be running up and down the streets?" Mathis asked. "To me this is not a fair position to put the parents in, and it's a dangerous situation for the children."