School maintenance goes missing

Contrary to what taxpayers might have been led to believe, the state’s school construction issue was not resolved by the bond extension that became law in March. It was just a start.

But a bill intended to fully fund the stated facility needs of Nevada’s school districts doesn’t get the job done, either. In fact, just like the bond rollover, it completely ignores a problem that’s driving capital costs ever higher while insulating elected officials from the leadership needed to solve it.

Senate Bill 207, the school bond rollover legislation, will allow the Clark County School District to borrow about $3.6 billion over the next 10 years under existing bonding authority. That money will allow the district to open 12 new schools and add permanent capacity to about 40 other schools over the next three years, then build and improve dozens more campuses in the years ahead to handle enrollment growth.

But the school district claims to have an additional $3.4 billion in facility needs. I think the figure is absurdly high — it amounts to almost $10 million for every existing campus. And the contention over general fund tax increases to fund Gov. Brian Sandoval’s new education spending will make it impossible for lawmakers to pass even more tax increases for a problem that was supposed to be fixed by SB207.

Enter Senate Bill 411, which has passed the Senate and is awaiting Assembly action. It’s written to put more school construction taxes on the 2016 ballot.

SB411 empowers each Nevada school board to create a Public Schools Overcrowding and Repair Needs Committee. The 15-member panel would include the district’s superintendent, two state lawmakers, a county commissioner, a mayor, a Realtor, a teacher, and gaming, building, retail and labor representatives, among others. That committee would be charged with proposing new county taxes — as many as it feels is necessary — to fund capital spending in that school district.

The county commission would be required to place the tax proposal on the 2016 general election ballot and, if it wins voter support, approve an ordinance creating those county taxes. Unlike the “More Cops” sales tax, which was punted to the Clark County Commission by the Legislature in 2013, commissioners wouldn’t have to vote on the school taxes. Neither would School Board members, for that matter.

But the bill’s most important accountability measure is also a flaw. Any taxes resulting from SB411 will fund capital projects — new buildings, new equipment and major renovations. Capital budgets are walled off from operational budgets, which fund payroll. SB411 specifies that new capital taxes cannot be plundered by unions to boost employee compensation.

Because of that, the money also can’t be used for one of the Clark County School District’s greatest operational needs: building maintenance. Preventive maintenance, which has never been adequately funded, was slashed in the years following the collapse of the valley’s economy to provide teachers with pay raises and prevent cuts to classroom spending. Because of that, buildings and equipment are breaking down sooner than they should, leading to shorter life spans. The school district itself has reported that every dollar not spent on routine maintenance creates $4 in capital costs down the road in the form of major repairs and replacements.

So instead of doing routine maintenance on air conditioners and roofs, they’re repaired and replaced. The word “maintenance” does not appear in SB411.

The school district’s capital needs are so great because its maintenance is awful.

Seeking voter approval for tax increases is good. Seeking voter approval for tax increases that would fund an ongoing taxpayer rip-off is bad.

At a minimum, SB411 should be amended to allow new taxes to fund facility maintenance as well as capital costs. But even that might not be enough to persuade voters to raise their taxes again.

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV.