County would share in fed school funds

Benjamin Grove

Monday, July 19, 1999 | 12:33 p.m.

President Clinton and U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley are leading a charge to free up $25 billion in interest-free loans for school districts to build and renovate schools.

The fast-growing Clark County School District could get an estimated $67.1 million, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That's about enough to build one elementary, one middle and one high school.

The district would have to pay the money back over 15 years, but the federal government would pay the multimillion-dollar interest payments on the loan.

"I've seen the need for school construction firsthand in communities all across America," Riley said in a prepared statement. "School building and repair is urgently needed in cities, suburbs and rural communities to address crumbling facilities and growing student enrollment."

Riley visited Las Vegas last August and met with Superintendent Brian Cram, who gave a tour of year-round Cynthia Cunningham Elementary School and newly built Charles Silvestri Middle School. The nation's education chief wanted to see the fastest-growing metropolitan school district in the nation.

Clinton and Riley must first persuade Congress to approve the money. The funds would be directed to the construction or renovation of 6,000 public schools nationwide.

Traditionally Clark County has raised local money for building and renovating schools through school bond issues -- asking voters for more of their property tax money. In 1998 voters pledged $2.5 billion to construct 88 new schools and repair old ones during the next 10 years.

Hotel room tax and real estate taxes will net another $1 billion.

"The '98 building program, as big as it is, still isn't big enough to meet all of our needs," Pat Herron, assistant superintendent of facilities for Clark County schools, said. "Whatever other funds are available to us, we have a place for it."

Joyce Haldeman, who oversees school bond expenditures, said, "The idea of having interest-free loans would be so appealing that we'd have to be crazy to turn it down."

School Board President Ruth Johnson said she was studying how the district could afford to pay back a $67 million loan.

"We're interested in pursuing that since we know that the 10-year bond program was only equipped to do a minimum number of schools for the needs that we would have over the next 10 years," Johnson said.

The General Accounting Office in 1995 reported 60 percent of the nation's schools need at least one major renovation. The report found that 83 percent of Nevada schools need repair.

"The need is clear and urgent," Riley said. "If the federal government can help build roads and prisons then surely we can help states and communities build and modernize schools for their students."