Superintendent offers to forgo raise for time off

Financial hard times have Clark County School District Superintendent Walt Rulffes offering to trade in his 2008-09 pay hike for additional vacation time.

On Monday, Rulffes said during his evaluation that he wanted to forgo the 4 percent increase in pay due all education employees because of the state budget cuts now faced by all Nevada K-12 systems.

Because of a shortfall in state revenues, Gov. Jim Gibbons has asked Nevada schools to cut about $92 million from the allocations approved by the Legislature for 2007-09.

Rulffes also asked board members to consider giving him additional vacation time in lieu of the pay raise.

"My compensation is more than fair now," said Rulffes, who earns $300,000 a year as superintendent of the nation's fifth-largest public school district. "I don't feel additional public dollars should be going to me when we're being asked to cut student programs."

Rulffes, selected as superintendent in 2006, now has 24 vacation days and 5 personal days. The specific number of days he might add to that is at the discretion of board members, who'll consider Rulffes's contract at a future meeting. Rulffes's contract with the district extends to Aug. 31, 2010.

School Board members unanimously agreed that Rulffes was in compliance with 11 performance areas, including treatment of students, families and staff; financial planning and budgeting; communication; and academic achievement.

"I appreciate the work you do and I appreciate the way you do it," board member Carolyn Edwards told Rulffes.