CARSON CITY -- A panel of lawmakers voted Thursday to forward a controversial report on education spending to the full Legislature, despite complaints that the data might be incomplete or flat out erroneous.

The report by a Denver-based consultant said the Nevada Legislature needs to boost education spending by nearly $223 million a year, starting with a base year of 2003-2004, so students can meet the performance standards of the federal No Child Left Behind Act by 2014, when full compliance is required.

Spending on public education in Nevada was $2.23 billion in the base year of 2003-2004. The yearly increase in funding would mean that spending on public education would total $4.46 billion a year in the 2013-2014 fiscal year.

The difference equates to the $223 million in annual education funding increases over 10 years. The suggested increase does not reflect growth in student enrollment. As more students enroll in school each year, actual public education funding would have to be increased further to accommodate the additional pupils.

Lawmakers serving on the School Funding Adequacy panel voted to accept the report prepared by Augenblick, Palaich and Associates and forward it to the 2007 Legislature without endorsing its findings.

The vote was unanimous, coming after speakers both praised and condemned the document.

But members of the panel -- both those who said the $225,000 report has valuable information and those that said it's a waste of money -- appeared to agree that the entire Legislature should have access to it as one piece of information to further the education funding debate.

State Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, a member of the panel, criticized the document as worthless.

"The Augenblick process has left me thinking it is invalid," he said.

Beers said the consultant has failed to provide a specific list of what the increased funding would be spent on. But he did vote to forward the report to his colleagues.

Also criticizing the report was Richard Phelps, who analyzed the report in an article for the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a fiscally conservative think tank.

Phelps, who holds a doctorate in public finance from the Wharton School for Commerce and Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, said "untenable" assumptions drove the numbers in the report.

A significant problem is that the panels of educators who advised the consultant have a conflict of interest that was not addressed in the report, he said.

Phelps recommended that lawmakers follow the recommendation of a group of critics of the report and take no action on it.

Ray Bacon, representing the Nevada Manufacturers Association, said the report needs amending to include information on how the funding number was generated so it can be duplicated by legislative fiscal staff.

"What I find with this report is that it is incomplete," he said.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, a member of the panel who sought the study in 2005, acknowledged it might be incomplete But it is taxpayer-funded information that the 63 members of the Legislature should have access to, he said. The report cost $225,000.

Although some criticized the report, others said there can be no question that more funding is needed in public education.

Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes said he believes the answer to the teacher shortage being experienced in the district this year can be found at least partially in higher salaries, which would cost money.

But he said the public is entitled to see evidence that existing funding is producing results before additional funds are provided.

Sheila Moulton, a member of the Clark County School Board, said students can't compete with other states in meeting the new standards without additional funding.

She mentioned the Agassi Charter School in Las Vegas, which has a longer school day, a longer school year and spends $4,000 more per child than the rest of the state. The school always achieves the adequate yearly progress required under the federal act, Moulton said.

Donna Hoffman-Anspach, representing Nevadans for Quality Education, said the numbers in the report are large, but the document should not be set aside as a result.

"The fact remains that quality education does require considerable funding," she said. "Reasonable minds may differ as to the degree of inadequacy. But few if any debate that Nevada schools fail to provide what is necessary for children to prepare for their future."

In moving to accept and forward the report, Perkins said educators know best what they need to help students succeed.

The Legislature has failed to provide the resources public education requires, he said. The report seeks funding for smaller class sizes, all-day kindergarten, before- and after-school programs and career and technical education, among other proposals, Perkins said.

"Most of this seems like just common sense stuff to me," he said. "I think there are a lot of things on this list that we can agree to. And when we do agree to those, they are going to have a price tag associated with them."

State Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, said the report contained some useful information, but he had concerns about its methodology.

"I kind of look at the study as one point of view about how we can get to a quality education in this state," he said.