State lawmakers will consider temporarily reducing school days and giving school districts emergency power to cut teacher salaries to help deal with the state’s $880 million shortfall.
School superintendents also pleaded with lawmakers Thursday to relax restrictions on how they spend their state funding support, which could be cut by as much 22 percent cut.
At that level, Washoe County might be forced to lay off 650 teachers and add up to six students per class, Superintendent Heath Morrison said.
“Ninety percent of our costs are in people,” Morrison said. “As we look at where to make cuts, we either have to make do with less people or compensate those people less.”
Morrison asked lawmakers to temporarily lift class-size mandates and relax requirements to spend a certain amount of money on textbooks each year. He said he is reluctant to shorten the school year, as state education officials recommended.
Though district has not identified specific cuts, he said it would be impossible to reach the percentages being discussed by lawmakers without layoffs or salary cuts.
Administrators, however, are bound by collective bargaining contracts and can’t make salary cuts without re-opening negotiations. Both sides would have to agree to that and the teachers union has been reluctant to do so.
“I’m here to tell you today enough is enough,” said Lynn Warne, president of the Nevada State Education Association. “We’ve been told for years: Do more with less, tighten our belts, make sacrifices and maybe in the future things will get better.”
That led Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, to propose allowing an emergency exception to collective bargaining agreements that would give school districts more power to reduce salaries in times of fiscal distress.
“What I’m hearing is for the next year if there’s no agreement to reduce personnel costs that their alternative is layoffs,” Raggio said. “That’s the worst thing I think could happen is to lay off teachers in these hard times.”
As Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulffes said: “It’s either a pink slip or small sacrifices.”
Warne said the union wants to be assured that no other cost-saving measure exists before administrators turn to salaries.
Morrison also warned against lawmakers raiding the district’s reserve funds for capital projects, a pot of money that’s looking increasingly appealing. Much of the capital money came from bond sales approved by voters for a specific purpose.
“We would be hard pressed, and we lost a bond issue last year, to get that trust back if we do something temporarily that would have long-term effects,” Morrison said of voters who approved the bond money.
But Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said voters probably would understand if the choice was between laying off teachers or fixing dilapidated schools.
“It makes sense to access that money,” she said. “We’re merely trying to get all of our options on the table because we are facing some very serious problems.”
Additional Facts
Possible effect on Washoe County
- A 22 percent cut: Layoff 650 teachers and 500 support staff and add six students to each class.
- A 15 percent cut: Layoff 470 teachers.
- A 10 percent cut: Layoff 400 teachers and up to 100 support staff
