Panel adds $5.9 million to schools budget

Friday, June 6, 1997 | 5:48 a.m.

The $5.9 million added Thursday by a joint subcommittee of Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Finance members resolves differences over ways to compute pay of newly hired teachers.

But subcommittee members, divided mostly along party lines, couldn't agree on other funding requests for textbooks or increased utility costs.

In all, about $20.4 million in additions to the public schools budget was considered by the joint subcommittee, but only the teacher salary proposal received unanimous support.

The differences in the other funding requests will have to be resolved at a future meeting of the two committees.

Miller's Budget Office argued against the proposal to add money for textbooks and supplies, saying funding for the items is included in the budget.

Don Hataway, chief assistant budget administrator, said Miller's schools budget proposed for the next two years has $376 million more than the current funding plan, and represents an 18.9 percent increase in spending.

Adding money to the budget for school supplies and textbooks doesn't mean the money will be spent for those purposes, he said.

Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, argued against the funding request. He said that when questions arise over money in school budgets for such items, district officials always reply that the budget is adequate.

Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, arguing for the increased funding, said districts have used the money for teacher salaries instead.

"They don't have to bargain it away," he said. "They ought to be spending it on textbooks. They ought to be spending it on instructional supplies so teachers don't run out."

Senators voted for no funding of the textbook request, while the Assembly voted to add $6.8 million to the budget for the supplies.

Mary Peterson, superintendent of public instruction for the state, said school district officials believe Miller's public schools budget is short by $34 per student in fiscal 1998, the first year of the budget, and $58 per student in fiscal 1999. The total amounts to about $27.5 million over two years.

The $5.9 million in funding agreed to by the joint subcommittee would reduce that shortfall to $29 per student in the first year and $44 per student in the second, or $21.5 million, she said.

"We need to go farther than that," Peterson said.