Monday, May 16, 2005 | 11:01 a.m.
Las Vegas may be reaching out to prospective teachers with a program that would offer some new teachers at city high schools up to $30,000 each toward buying a home.
City and Clark County School District leaders said the proposed program would help address a major problem the school district faces when trying to recruit new teachers -- the struggle to find affordable housing -- but they acknowledged that the money wouldn't go as far as they would like.
The Las Vegas City Council, scheduled to vote Wednesday on the proposed Las Vegas Homeownership for Educators Program, set aside $500,000 in redevelopment funds for the project.
To be eligible, the new teachers would have to be teaching math, science or special education at either Western, Clark or Desert Pines high schools, according to the proposal. City and school officials said the proposed eligibility restrictions are based on need because a targeted program is expected to be more successful than a broad one and because those schools are within the city limits.
"We are really appreciative of the city even being willing to consider this," said George Ann Rice, school district associate superintendent of human resources. "It would mean a lot and have a tremendous impact on those three high schools."
Rice said that because the district is expected to recruit 2,500 new teachers for the coming year, offering a program that could help only 16 or 17 new teachers to all the recruits wouldn't turn out to be much of an incentive program because the money would be used so quickly.
However, by targeting the program to the specific "critical shortage" areas in three Las Vegas high schools, the district would have a strong recruitment tool for those positions, Rice said.
Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association, said the city program would be "just a drop in the bucket," but added that any help is welcome.
"Affordable housing is a huge problem for teachers, and I think the answer is to increase salaries, but every little bit helps," Holloway said. "This is only a partial answer to a big problem."
Holloway said a teacher's starting salary is about $28,500 a year, which she said is about $10,000 less than comparably educated workers in other fields.
City Council members Michael Mack and Lois Tarkanian said the proposed program sounds great.
"It's a start in the right direction," Mack said.
Tarkanian, a former School Board member, said that while she "believes in the concept" she wants to further review the specifics of the program.
The program, if approved, would offer qualified teachers up to $30,000 toward a new home, but applicants would have to meet income guidelines and be approved for a mortgage. How much they received from the city program could vary depending on their need.
The money would be a grant so long as the teacher lived in the home and continued working in one of the eligible jobs for 10 years. If they moved out or changed jobs earlier, they would have to pay back part of the money.
For example, if the teacher sold the property within five years of moving in, the teacher would have to repay all of the money they received from the city. If a teacher moved out of the home after six years they would be required to pay back half of the money received from the city program.
The $500,000 for the program would come from the city's redevelopment fund, which receives revenue from a portion of the property taxes collected in the city's redevelopment areas.
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