Speaker of the Nevada Assembly Steve Yeager, left, speaks during a press conference at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023. In background from left, Nevada State Senator Pat Spearman, Nevada Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, Nevada Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui, Nevada State Senator Dina Neal and Nevada Senator Rochelle Nguyen.
Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023 | 2 a.m.
One of the chief sponsors of legislation to set aside a quarter of a billion dollars to give pay raises to Nevada educators says he is mystified by the Clark County School District’s concern around accessing the money because the bill was written with a sunset clause.
Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager and his Democratic colleagues have said it before, and he’s saying it again: pay teachers and support staff more. Use this money identified explicitly for that purpose.
It would be “shameful” not to, Yeager told the Sun late last week.
“I think we have made it clear, in every single way possible, that this huge infusion of money, including the over $2 billion more that’s going into the pupil-centered funding formula, is intended to be used to make sure that teachers and education support professionals get raises,” he said, referencing this year’s historic investment into Nevada’s overall K-12 budget. “You have to look at it as over $2.3 billion, and we said we want to put this $250 million aside because we want (districts) to use that money for this particular purpose.”
As the largest school district in the state and one of the largest in the country, CCSD stands to be allotted the lion’s share of the matching funds allocated by Senate Bill 231, which passed the Nevada Legislature in June on near-unanimous votes and was signed into law by Gov. Joe Lombardo.
The idea is that the state will allot each of Nevada’s 17 school districts a proportional amount of the money to work with over the next two years to match additional pay raises beyond previously agreed-upon adjustments. For CCSD’s teachers union, which is locked in bitter battle with the district to settle a contract, SB 231 funds are part of the path to 18% across-the-board raises and other compensation adjustments.
State fiscal analysts were due to receive staffing lists for all Nevada districts this past week so they could divvy up the money for the Interim Finance Committee to parcel out. The committee, a body of state lawmakers that makes various funding decisions between Nevada’s regular biennial legislative sessions, will decide how much money each district ultimately gets. The committee’s next scheduled meetings are in October and December.
SB 231 states that funds must be committed before June 30, 2025. Unspent dollars revert to the state general fund as of Sept. 19, 2025.
That last part is the rub for CCSD.
Earlier this month, Superintendent Jesus Jara said that the district was willing to use the money on raises, but with the clear end date he “can’t negotiate in good faith for our employees, for our students, with money that we don’t have promised to come back.” CCSD’s chief financial officer Jason Goudie likewise said the new law was crystal clear on its sunset date.
“Now, can the Legislature renew that bill? Yes. Could they create another bill that provides more or something different? Yes,” Goudie said. “But we don’t know that, and to put the financial stability of the district at risk hoping that something like that happens is not sound financial practice.”
Yeager, a Las Vegas Democrat, said he was disappointed by a district argument that he said made no sense.
“I just don’t foresee a scenario where CCSD would give raises, tap into that one-time money, and then you’d have either the Legislature or the governor come forward in the 2025 session and say, ‘We’re not going to give you enough money to continue operations and funding for those raises.’ That’s a fantasy world that doesn’t exist,” he said. “Why would we ever do that? We have problems right now with teacher recruitment and retention, and we’re trying to hit that problem head-on. The last thing we would do is decrease the funding to the school districts” and put them in the position of pulling back money.
All legislatively appropriated funding is one-time money, Yeager said. Every legislative session comes with a new biennial budget to fund the operations of state government.
To Goudie’s additional point that standard school funding comes with some statutory assurance of returning, Yeager acknowledged there were “presumptions” — for example, the funding formula should increase at least by the level of inflation. But the governor has the ability to depart from the guidance, for instance, if there is an economic crisis — though Yeager is bullish, citing Las Vegas’ post-pandemic return of conventions and its burgeoning professional sports scene and other acts drawn to their venues.
“I think the more logical thing, after seeing that this money is used in the way that’s intended, is that you would probably supplement the pupil-centered funding formula with that amount of money next session,” he said, “So I just think this is very much seeing monsters under the bed or monsters in the closet that just are not going to be there.”
Lawmakers didn’t supplement the pupil-centered funding formula to start because they wanted to attach strings to the money, and he said they didn’t think they’d get that assurance if they rolled it into the general education budget.
Yeager says he thinks Nevadans find the state’s chronically bottom-five ranking in education funding unacceptable. The state’s Commission on School Funding set a target last fall for Nevada to hit the national average in about 10 years, and with the 2023 budget, it got about four to six of those years closer, he said. Now, Yeager said, it’s possible to meet the goal over the next two or three legislative sessions, assuming better economic tidings.
Constituents have brought up Nevada’s schools, and health care, more than any other topics since he started running for office in 2014, Yeager said.
“We need a qualified educator in every single classroom, and we need the support staff there,” he said. “If we’re not paying them, we’re not going to have that. And I think that makes progress in (academic) areas really difficult.”
