There are less than 2 weeks left in this legislative session, and we are still waiting on a public discussion of mining taxes and serious contemplation of generating the revenue needed by public education and other important public services in Nevada. It’s past time to open a public hearing on AJR1**.
K-12 public education has been woefully underfunded for decades, ranking 48th among the states in per- pupil funding. Nevada also has the largest student to teacher ratio in the country. Still being considered is a $156M cut to class size reduction over the next biennium. This would mean a loss of about 1000 teachers across the state, meaning even more students packed into Nevada classrooms. Also in play is a $33M cut to early literacy supports in the Read by Grade 3 program.
Last session SB543, the new school funding plan, created the Commission on School Funding and charged it with recommending funding targets and identifying revenues to fully fund the associated cost. Last month, the Commission published their Preliminary Recommendations. While NSEA opposed SB543, we largely agree with the Commission’s funding targets. The Commission proposed reaching “adequate” funding by increasing education investment by $2B over the next 10 years. That’s $400M each biennium starting this session.
That’s why NSEA believes AJR1, passed in the 32nd Special Session, would be a strong start to meeting this goal. AJR1 would generate $485 million in new revenue for Nevada annually. It’s the right-sized response this session to the revenue challenges we face. We’ve all heard there have been conversations about a possible deal, but no one seems to know any of the parameters. It’s time to open up the conversation. Please schedule AJR1 here for this conversation.
