Panel OKs unique funding plan for state-funded work on local schools

Brendan Riley

Thursday, Nov. 11, 1999 | 9:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY - A unique plan providing about $16 million in state bond revenues to replace unsafe schools in two rural Nevada counties has been approved by the state Board of Examiners.

The board, chaired by Gov. Kenny Guinn, voted Wednesday to approve $10 million for three White Pine County school projects and $5.9 million for one project in Lincoln County.

The state will sell bonds to generate the money, although cash advances from the state general fund are expected so that work can start soon.

The funding scheme may be the first of its sort in the nation, according to White Pine County schools chief Mark Shellinger, who had joined in a big lobbying effort to get the 1999 Legislature to endorse the idea.

Shellinger said the National Association of School Boards determined that no other state had provided such a funding mechanism for local schools on a voluntary basis - although there were cases of court-ordered funding and instances of one-shot appropriations.

The funding is available to school districts with unsafe schools and no tax base to fix them. Only White Pine and Lincoln have qualified under terms of the new Nevada law.

White Pine plans to use $3.6 million for a new school in Pleasant Valley. Once built, it will serve children who now must take a bus over the Utah border to attend classes.

Another $5.8 million of the White Pine funding will be used for a K-12 school at Lund. The school will handle up to 200 students - double the enrollment at the current Lund school. But the Board of Examiners was told many students now go to other schools or are educated at home, and they'd enroll at the new school once it's built.

The balance of the White Pine money, $600,000, will be used to improve the existing White Pine Middle School.

Vaughn Higbee, chief of the Lincoln County school district, said the $5.9 million for his county will pay for a 200-student high school project. He added the district hopes to have the work done as early as August 2000.

Guinn praised lawmakers for authorizing the new funding scheme, terming it "a giant step" in ensuring Nevada schools are safe.

"These kinds of situations shouldn't exist in the state of Nevada," he added, referring to the unsafe schools that White Pine and Lincoln counties couldn't fix without the state's help.