On the first day of the previous Special Session, hundreds of educators donned red face coverings and lined both sides of the street from the Legislative building to the Capitol with a clear call to Fund Healthy Schools. We chanted “Be Brave. Be Bold. New Revenue’s the Way to Go!” Educators mobilized for new revenue as the Governor presented hundreds of millions of dollars in painful cuts, including $156 million in cuts to K-12 public education. Unfortunately, the effort to amend mining tax deductions was blocked by a minority of the legislature.
We are left with education cuts into the bone, including class size reduction and programs for our most vulnerable students like weighted funding and Read By Grade 3. Now just days away from Back to School, we know how difficult the planning has been heading to the start of the new school year.
Whether districts are going back to distance learning, a hybrid model, or reopening buildings trying to follow the state’s health guidelines, additional resources are necessary to safely get back to school. Unfortunately, those resources are not available. On the other side of our current crisis, Nevada is the world’s 5th largest producer of gold, which hit a record high of $1931/oz earlier this week, yet the mining industry pays very little in state taxes.
AJR1 which would generate nearly a half-billion dollars in new revenue for Nevada is the right-sized treatment of an industry that has enjoyed a sweetheart deal since Nevada’s beginnings. The proposal is also significant enough to move the needle on the chronic underfunding of Nevada’s schools and other vital health and human services. Be brave. Be bold. Pass AJR1.
