School district technology takes budget hit

Technology to unify the functions of the Clark County School District is among the first victims of Gov. Jim Gibbons' mandate to reduce education budgets because of state revenue shortfalls.

Full implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning system, or ERP, will have to wait if Gibbons' requested cuts become reality, said District Chief Financial Officer Jeff Weiler.

"We're kind of in the process of ramping things down," Weiler said Tuesday. "It is partially scaled back for a while."

The district has been moving toward bringing the system fully on-line since 2003-04. About $12 million was earmarked for ERP in the 2008 budget, Weiler said. Roughly half that amount remains unspent and will likely be credited toward the 4.5 percent reductions in state funding that Gibbons is asking all school districts to absorb.

District finance and purchasing personnel began using ERP in 2007, Weiler said. What's on hold is rolling out ERP for staff in human resources, teacher recruitment and payroll. Those areas of administration will continue on the systems now in use, which are not connected to ERP or with each other.

In 2004, the district approved $33 million to purchase the ERP software, but cost estimates for full implementation rose last year to between $40 million and $50 million.

The move to a centralized system came after a state-mandated audit found the district's management technology to be antiquated.

When fully operational, ERP will offer a menu of functions, ranging from general budget accounting to allowing school personnel to purchase supplies over their campus computers.

School and district departments formerly on different software systems will be able to share information and communicate with each other more quickly and effectively.

"We're not canceling anything at this point," Weiler said. "This is a postponement."

The delay will result in higher costs, Weiler said, but how much higher is unknown.

Putting ERP on the cut list shifts some of the burden from programs that directly serve students, Weiler said.

Nevada Superintendent of Schools Keith Rheault said Gibbons has asked school districts to identify cuts and forward them to the governor's office by April 1.

A total of $92.7 million in K-12 education spending needs to be reduced by Nevada school districts. Rheault said it's likely that $63.9 million of that will come from deferring one-time funding for full-day kindergarten expansion and remediation programs.

School districts will have to make up the remaining $28.8 million, Rheault said. Because Clark County is the state's largest district, it will be responsible for between 72 percent and 74 percent of that amount.

Rheault said education officials last met with state staff on Friday to discuss the cuts.

A second option was put on the table that would call for across-the-board cuts of $200 for each of Nevada's 433,000 public school students. That wasn't popular with most superintendents, Rheault said.

"It is painful," he said, adding that either option under consideration is going to roll back services for students.

"About 5,800 kindergarten kids who were going to get added to full-day kindergarten are probably not going to get it," Rheault said.

Clark County School District board members will take up the issue of the cuts again at their Thursday meeting.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, has said Gibbons should draw on the state's rainy day fund and leave school budgets intact. She questions whether Gibbons can roll back remediation funding allocated by legislators for that specific use.

Rheault said that issue has come up in other forums.

"I think the state's position is that the funding is not reverting to the state budget. It's being deferred."

Contact reporter Lisa Kim Bach at lbach@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0287.