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NSEA News

NSEA Public Comment: Commission on School Funding

NSEA's public comments at the 2/4/2021 Commission on School Funding Meeting
Delay2021
Published: February 4, 2021

Key Takeaways

  1. While implementation of SB543 as designed is riddled with problems, NSEA is concerned that a phased-in approach could actually be worse. Numerous legislators at a meeting of the Legislative Commission’s Budget Subcommittee raised similar concerns. Under the Nevada Plan, the state provides a basic support guarantee for every Nevada student, as required by the Constitution, of over $6000 per pupil. Under the phased approach local revenues are excluded from this calculation, lowering the amount to under $3000 per pupil. What will be the impact on our schools if local revenues are less than anticipated?

Since the introduction of SB543, NSEA has expressed our concern about the new funding plan at every opportunity. Despite being an active participant in the development of SB178 during the 2017 Legislative Session and sitting on the Funding Study Work Group, NSEA was shut out of the process of developing SB543 during the 2019 Session. Our first chance to see language did not come until the 99th day, and what was called that session’s most important legislation received only a single public hearing. NSEA testified in force, raising numerous policy issues. Despite active educator voice denied representation on the Commission on School Funding, NSEA has appeared and/or submitted written testimony at each meeting of this Commission, with numerous educators from across the state also weighing in. Unfortunately, over a year and a half of meetings, this Commission failed to substantively address a single concern we raised, as if the voice of educators does not matter when deciding how to fund schools in Nevada.

The policy concerns expressed by NSEA over the last two years stand—the lack of educator voice; no new revenue for our chronically underfunded schools; watering down of our model education equity programs, Zoom and Victory schools; freezing and squeezing most school district budgets for a period of years; a giveaway to charter schools without increased accountability, and rewriting the rules of collective bargaining to make it nearly impossible for education unions to win a raise at the bargaining table.

Now with the COVID-19 pandemic other serious problems with the new funding plan have emerged. During the interim, the Funding Commission was charged with modeling the new funding plan alongside the Nevada Plan, but numbers varied wildly from month to month, projecting new winners and new losers at three consecutive meetings. Cuts of weighted funding during the Special Session called the move to the new funding plan into question. While those cuts have been slated for restoration, new cuts to class size reduction and per pupil funding are equally devastating. With his budget introduction, the Governor also proposed a phased implementation of SB543. Since this introduction, we have struggled to figure out the impact on districts other than another round of new winners and losers with this transition. We don’t recall any contemplation of this proposal at any Commission meeting over the last year and a half.

NSEA maintain it is completely irresponsible to effectuate a radical shift in the state’s education funding formula amidst a global pandemic, especially as further general fund cuts are proposed for our schools. This is even more true with the 11th hour changes proposed by the Governor. Given all these challenges, we believe the only responsible course of action is to delay SB543 until after the pandemic, while we are able to work together on optimal funding and the revenue plan to get us there. Thank you.

RFE

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NSEA has been the voice of educators for over 120 years. We represent teachers, education support professionals, and other licensed professionals throughout the state of Nevada.