Public Comment: Commission on School Funding 8.25.23

For decades, Nevada has ranked near the bottom of states in education funding. In April, the National Education Association (NEA) released their annual Ranking of the States for 2022, and Nevada continued to struggle.

At $11,280 per-pupil last year, Nevada once again ranks 48th in the country, more than $5000 behind the national average and about $1000 behind both Alabama and Mississippi. While it is certainly promising that the K-12 budget was increased by 26% over last biennium and $318 million more than the Governor’s recommendation, this good news is blunted by minimal increases in previous years that also had record inflation – eating away most of the proposed increases.

In 2019, the Legislature created this Commission on School Funding and tasked you with studying what it would take for Nevada to reach optimal funding in 10 years. Accounting for most of the “historic” increases to K12 funding recommended in the Governor’s budget, Nevada will still need to raise over $2B/year to reach optimal education funding by FY33. I trust Chair Hobbs will be discussing more exact numbers. This Commission was additionally tasked with making recommendations to the legislature on how the state could raise these funds. The two areas recommended were sales tax and property taxes. This is best described in your November 2022 report.

As noted, there are only two sources of tax revenue that have the capacity to achieve the identified levels of annual funding increases over time – property tax and sales tax. While other tax sources can certainly be considered to complement or supplement the overall funding strategy, the revenue demands to achieve the targeted levels of funding in the coming decade would not be achievable without significant contributions from the tax capacity that exists within the property and sales tax systems.

Unfortunately, while the Governor and Legislature were able to program additional funds into the K12 budget this year, they failed to move the ball on any new sources of revenue, including on the Commission’s recommendations. This will need to be addressed if Nevada is to ever approach optimal education funding