Assembly panel calls for raise for teachers

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 | 11:20 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Assembly Ways and Means Committee today approved an addition to the state's school budget that calls for a 5 percent raise in each of the next two years for teachers.

The committee agreed to pump an additional $193 million into Gov. Kenny Guinn's proposed budget to pay for raises for all school district personnel, including nurses, administrators and support staff.

Guinn had recommended a 2 percent increase.

Assemblyman Bob Seale, R-Henderson, questioned where the additional money would come from. Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, said there may be enough revenue after other reductions are made to the Guinn budget.

She also noted the pay raise amount still has to be negotiated with the Senate Finance Committee. She predicted, however, that whatever figure comes out of the negotiations will be higher than the recommendation of Guinn.

Pat Zamora, a contract lobbyist for the Clark County School District, said the acceptance by the Ways and Means Committee was a "non-event." He said Republican members of the committee do not support the 5 percent. And it must be negotiated with the Senate committee.

"They still have to hammer out the differences," said Zamora.

He said he did not expect the final pay raise to be 5 percent. He noted that any raise for the teachers would probably have to be the same for state workers.

For the support of schools, Guinn recommended $956.5 million as the state's share in the next fiscal year. The committee agreed to $1.073 billion in fiscal 2007, the committee recommended $1.225 billion as the state's share compared with $1.015 billion suggested by the governor.

Giunchigliani told the committee that its subcommittee on education had to add $34 million each year because of a mistake in the figures presented the state by Clark and Washoe counties.

The committee approved adding $4.4 million over the next two years to cover inflation for the cost of textbooks. This increase amounts to 4.4 percent each year. Giunchigliani said that is different than the Senate that did not include any inflation factor for textbooks.

Another $19 million was added to the governor's budget to provide the extra benefits given certain teachers who remain at high-risk schools. They receive extra retirement credits and these positions include mathematics, science, special education, English as a second language and psychology.

The committee rejected the governor's recommendation that a class-size reduction program now being used in some rural counties be extended to Clark and Washoe districts. In the rural counties the pupil-teacher ratios would be at 22 students to one teacher for grades 1-3 and 25-1 in grades 4-6.

At present the pupil-teacher ratio is 16-1 in first and second grades and 19-1 in the third grades in the urban areas.