CCSD approves $4.1 billion building plan

The Clark County School Board late Thursday unanimously approved a big-picture plan to spend $4.1 billion on 35 new elementary schools and two high school campuses across the Las Vegas Valley.

The 10-year plan, which reserves about $2 billion for brand new facilities and additions at 54 existing campuses, sets aside the remaining $2.1 billion for renovations or replacements of some of the oldest buildings in the Clark County School District.

Trustees, noting the growing neighborhoods on the southeast and northwest sides of Las Vegas, chose to modify a committee's recommendation to build just one high school and 27 elementary schools. Construction of one high school costs roughly the equivalent of three elementary campuses.

Before the 7-0 vote, district officials stressed they can and likely will revise the capital improvement plan as student enrollment growth and property tax revenues change, for better or worse, over the next decade.

"We should really be moving forward on multiple projects right now," said Jim McIntosh, chief financial officer for the district. "This gives us the ability to start moving on those projects. It will help us define what our land acquisition strategy will be (and) where we will start looking for land.

"We have six new schools planned for 2017, six more in 2018 and we need to start planning for what's going to be or where the schools are going to be in 2019," McIntosh added. "We even need to start looking at our land inventory, or start acquiring land or start talking to developers."

The last time the district issued debt to fund new construction, in 1998, the initial estimate of $3.1 billion rose to $4.9 billion and funded several projects not included in the original plan pitched to the public.

While the district expects student enrollment to rise by 1 percent annually, Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky told the board on Thursday that enrollment actually fell below projections for the new school year.

As of this week, the district counted just 320,123 students, about 3,000 less than expected.

District officials recently made a two-year, $850 million commitment to state lawmakers to build 12 new elementary schools, 43 additions at existing campuses and replace four aging schools.

Construction crews will break ground on many of those projects next spring, with the first set of schools and replacement campuses set to open in August 2017.

Contact Neal Morton at nmorton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @nealtmorton