School budgets

So Walt Rulffes thinks he's got it bad?

The superintendent of the Clark County School District was not happy last year when the governor asked agencies to trim their projected budgets by 4.5 percent.

With revenues coming in well below projections, the governor was forced to demand spending adjustments.

Oh, Mr. Rulffes district would still get more state money than the year before, just not as much as hoped.

But the situation facing the Clark County School District is hardly unique.

School board members from across the country were in Washington, D.C., last week for an annual conference -- and the fiscal news was not good.

"School budgets have seemed to defy gravity in recent years -- going up steadily without ever coming down," The Associated Press reported. "But ... that's likely to change soon, and [school boards are] bracing for leaner times forced by the nation's economic downturn."

Board members across the country were considering a number of options, including less generous benefits for employees -- an approach that Mr. Rulffes has not even considered in Clark County.

In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed $4 billion in cuts to public education. Some districts in the state may rethink expensive class-size reduction programs -- another option not even on the table in Nevada.

Employee benefits? The holy grail of class-size reduction?

It seems that Mr. Rulffes is in a far more enviable position than some of his counterparts.