Schools budget is OK’d

Teachers who can't pay their mortgages, working extra jobs to make ends meet, leaving their chosen vocation for better paying jobs and other tales of heartache confronted the Clark County School Board as it met Wednesday to approve a $2.1 billion budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year.

After the unanimous 7-0 vote by the School Board, Superintendent Walt Rulffes assured the many teachers assembled in the theater at the Edward Greer Education Center, 2832 E. Flamingo Road, that the School Board was not taking action on salaries.

The school district budget for next year calls for $120 million in program cuts but does not slash employee salaries by 4 percent to 6 percent, which is what the Legislature and the governor have recommended respectively.

Although the school district won't know its funding until the state budget is approved, the School Board was under a state-mandated deadline to pass a budget before the Legislature ends its session, possibly by June 1.

So it's likely the school budget will have to be amended in June once the state budget is passed. School district finance officers, however, believe they have prepared for the worst and their school budget could even accommodate most of the funding cuts as recommended by Gov. Jim Gibbons.

However, the school budget is still out of balance by $19.9 million as school officials have decided to wait for state funding information before deciding how to deal with the anticipated shortfall in local property taxes. The drop-off in property taxes is expected to get worse for the second year of the biennium, 2010-11, as property values continue to decline.