Nevada 47th in per-pupil funding

By Emily Richmond

Friday, March 18, 2005 | 11:17 a.m.

Nevada spent an average of $6,084 per student for the 2002-03 academic year, the fifth lowest rate of spending among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The national average for 2002-03 was $8,019 per student, according to the survey, which tallied public school finances from all sources. The District of Columbia led the nation in per-pupil spending with an average of $13,328. Utah was 51st at $4,860.

Nevada's ranking had slipped down one notch from the 2001-02 school year, when it ranked 46th with an average per-pupil spending rate of $6,034. While Nevada has increased its per-pupil average in recent years other states have as well, raising the national average and keeping the Silver State at the bottom of the list.

"Is anyone surprised?" said Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia about the state rankings. "There's a perception out there that things are getting better but really we're just falling further and further behind."

The 2003 Legislature voted to raise the guaranteed per-pupil minimum by 7 percent over the biennium, to $4,424 per year. The state makes up the difference between the guaranteed minimum and what's collected locally through sales taxes and property taxes.

Gov. Kenny Guinn's biennium budget calls for lowering the per-pupil minimum guarantee to $4,382 next year and raising it to $4,465 in 2007. Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, called that proposal "distressing" last week at a meeting of the legislative budget committee reviewing school funding, of which she is chairwoman.

"Nevada has not kept pace with its constitutional requirement to provide not only a free but an equitable public education," Giunchigliani said Thursday. "We have a little bit of extra money this year and everybody wants to spend it. But it shouldn't be wasted on pet projects or new programs. It should be used to make sure our schools are being adequately funded."

Doug Thunder, deputy superintendent of finances for the Nevada Department of Education, said it's unlikely that the state's school funding ranking will climb out of the basement anytime soon.

"I'm not convinced the funding levels the Legislature is looking at would improve our position nationally," Thunder said. "The national (per-pupil spending) average goes up by about 4.9 percent annually and we're definitely not keeping pace with that."

Mike Griffith, a policy analyst for the Education Commission of the States, said it's not enough to simply compare per-pupil spending rates when evaluating public schools, and pointed to the states spending the most and the least as evidence.

Washington, D.C., spent more than twice as much as Nevada did per student in the 2002-03 academic year, but the schools in the nation's capital have some of the lowest test scores and student achievement rates in the country. At the same time Utah, which had the lowest per-pupil spending rates in 2002-03, had strong student achievement across the board.

The difference isn't that schools in the nation's capital are misusing its money, although serious questions have been raised about the efficiency of the school district, Griffith said. Rather it's the makeup of the student enrollment and the families they come from that play as much of a role in achievement as funding, Griffith said.

"Washington, D.C., is a completely urban school district with a high percentage of at-risk students coming from single-parent households," Griffith said. "In contrast the only place that Utah has that's even close to an urban district is Salt Lake City. There are a lot of two-parent families with a high level of educational attainment and almost no at-risk students."

Clark County, along with other fast-growing regions in Western states, face the unique challenge of trying to stretch available dollars to keep up with student growth, Griffith said.

"Schools don't get funded for the current number of students but based on the prior year's enrollment," Griffith said. "In a place where they gain or lose a few hundred students each year, that's no big deal. In Clark County, when enrollment grows 5 percent (annually), it means the schools are always a step behind."

Garcia said he hoped lawmakers would consider the Census report as they continue outlining the education budget for the next two years.

"As a state I hope we don't wait until we're 50th to take action," Garcia said. "Sometimes people assume we're making all this up. Well, these aren't our studies. Take any one of them, the Census, Kids Count, they all say the same thing. We're not giving our schools enough money."