18 May 2023
Legislative Democrats on Thursday presented their plan in a hearing to boost teacher salaries statewide with a bucket of $250 million in state dollars — though precisely how that money could be spent raised eyebrows among some school districts and teacher unions.
SB231 — sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) and co-sponsored by 34 other Democrats — would set aside $250 million from the state’s general fund, not the K-12 budget, to increase pay for licensed educators and paraprofessionals.
However, teacher raises are technically bound by contract negotiations between school districts and unions and can’t easily be earmarked by lawmakers.
As a result, SB231 would instead allow the Interim Finance Committee — a body of lawmakers that meets between legislative sessions to make spending decisions — to dole out the money from the $250 million bucket as matching funds to increases agreed upon between districts and bargaining units under certain conditions (including not using those increases to reduce existing compensation elsewhere).
Information on the negotiated increases and the fiscal impact of those decisions would be presented to lawmakers by district officials by mid-August, and the $250 million would need to be spent before September 2025 before reverting back to the general fund.
The move comes as lawmakers from both parties and Gov. Joe Lombardo seek to boost education funding, in large part by backing a $2 billion increase in the state’s K-12 spending driven by historically high tax revenues. But as the session has dragged on, the particulars of that funding — and whether or not lawmakers will approve Democratic proposals in excess of the money proposed by Lombardo — have become a political football.
Presenting the bill to the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Cannizzaro argued that with severe shortages still gripping the state’s schools, better education outcomes would start with additional spending on teacher recruitment and retention.
“What our kids actually, really do need at this point in time … is a qualified teacher in every classroom,” Cannizzaro said. “They deserve that. We, as a Legislature, owe that to them.”
The state’s largest teachers union, the Clark County Education Association (CCEA) — so far a reliable ally of Lombardo’s education proposals this legislative session — also lined up in support of the bill.
“You often hear of how many vacancies we have, and at some point you become numb to that figure, that there’s 1,400 vacancies [at CCSD],” CCEA Executive Director John Vellardita told the committee. “Well, over the next 10 years, we’re going to need 14,000 educators in Clark County alone, through attrition and growth in population.”
But Sen. Heidi Seevers Gansert pressed Cannizzaro as to whether the mechanisms presented by the bill would create unintended consequences for state budgets, namely through using one-time spending to fund ongoing expenses such as salaries, and whether or not the money would be better used for one-time spending boosts, such as retention bonuses.
“I guess the question is about making sure this is sustainable, if you’re asking for a percentage increase [in teacher pay],” Seevers Gansert said.
The Nevada State Education Association, the state teachers union, also raised separate concerns over potential ripple effects from the new money.
Testifying against the bill, NSEA lobbyist Chris Daly told lawmakers that, though the group backed the theory behind boosting teacher salaries, the uneven nature of distribution of new education dollars to smaller school districts — with Storey County set to lose a small percentage of funding — would restrict the ability of some districts to hit the matching fund threshold.
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