Nevada Republicans protest lack of charter teacher raises in education budget
Republican lawmakers took a stand against Nevada’s education budget in a vote Wednesday, protesting the roughly $12.4 billion appropriation bill’s lack of raises for public charter school teachers.
But the 13-8 vote was not enough to stall Senate Bill 500, which received the majority needed to pass out of the state Senate and now heads to the Nevada Assembly for consideration.
Republican senators’ focus on charter school teacher raises is a point of political tension in the legislative session’s waning weeks. Gov. Joe Lombardo told lawmakers earlier this month he would not sign an education budget that did not include pay raises for the state’s charter educators.
“This is not just about politics. It is about fairness,” Sen. Carrie Buck, R-Henderson, said in debate before the floor vote Wednesday afternoon. “By excluding public charter school teachers from pay raises, you sent a clear message – and disappointing message – that some teachers and the students they serve matter less.”
Democrats pushed back on the Republicans’ protest vote. Sen. Melanie Scheible, D-Las Vegas, said the concern from Republicans are unfounded because the public charter school teacher raises are proposed in two other bills from Legislative leadership: Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro’s Senate Bill 460 and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager’s Assembly Bill 398, which was amended before a Thursday hearing to include charter educator raises following Lombardo’s public statement.
“The money in this bill is not specific to non-charter schools,” Scheible said. “It does not exclude the students who attend charter schools. The money in SB 500 is allocated to every single student in the state of Nevada, and to pick on charter school teachers for charter school teacher raises is a red herring.”
Senators approved about $11.5 billion in allocations to the Pupil-Centered Funding Plan account, which makes up the largest portion of the state’s education budget. SB 500 calls for $9,416 in base per-pupil funding for the 2026 fiscal year and $9,486 for the following year, a $2 and $72 increase respectively from the current fiscal year.
Earlier this month, lawmakers advanced plans to allocate $250 million to fund K-12 teacher raises in the upcoming biennium, an effort that was first introduced in 2023 and was a goal of both parties to make permanent during this session. But they did not include $38 million to extend those raises to charter school staff, who were not included previously – prompting outrage from Lombardo and legislative Republicans.
Yeager amended his bill, which provides incentives for educators in hard-to-fill positions, to include that group through a different funding mechanism than the traditional education budget. The funds would be taken from the general fund, then go to the Interim Finance Committee to allocate the funds to charter schools.
The K-12 education appropriations bill is constitutionally required to be the first budget approved by the Legislature. The other four major appropriations bills – which allocate funding for state agencies, capital improvement projects, state workers and more – also passed through their houses of origin on Wednesday. The Legislature adjourns June 2.
Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.
