CCSD budget would include increase of $90 per student in 2018

The Clark County School Board approved a roughly $2.4 billion tentative budget on Wednesday for its first year under a mandated reorganization, a fiscal plan that still has district officials hoping for more money from the state.

The preliminary budget is based on a projected increase of $41 million from the state’s Distributive School Account, although lawmakers have yet to finalize that amount in the current legislative session.

The estimated per-pupil amount for fiscal year 2018 is $5,664, an increase of $90 per student from 2017.

But district officials said that with anticipated future salaries, the ideal per-pupil increase would be double that amount — an additional $180 per student.

“We are hoping that the legislature will understand our needs in order for the district to be successful,” said interim Chief Financial Officer Eva White. “It really is (about) lobbying them so that they understand the cost of educating children.”

Meanwhile, the district continues to roll out the reorganization without weighted funding that state law requires for students who fall in four special categories. One bill proposed in the Senate could provide a weight for English language learners and students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch for next fiscal year.

Whether the district can and will split its funding 80-20 between schools and central services, another requirement of the law, remains unclear.

Trustee Kevin Child said many students are being left out of the state’s Zoom and Victory programs, which target English language learner and low-income populations.

“It’s always that money issue. They don’t fund us properly,” he said of the state legislature. “They have never, in 25 years, funded public education the way it should be. But they keep on changing the laws.”

The district still has to settle two overdue contracts with the Clark County Association of School Administrators and Professional-Technical Employees and the Police Administrators Association.

Money for those contracts will be taken out of the current fiscal year’s budget, which is projected to have $38.5 million in unassigned, available money at the end of the year.

And although district policy requires the budget to end with at least 2 percent in its unassigned ending fund balance, the proposed budget once again sets aside only 1.75 percent.

Trustees voted to waive that 2-percent requirement, as they did last year.

Contact Amelia Pak-Harvey at apak-harvey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4630. Follow @AmeliaPakHarvey on Twitter.