Empowerment money mystery

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Thursday, June 14, 2007 | 8:02 a.m.

As the dust of the 2007 Legislature settles, the Clark County School District is struggling to understand how $1.7 million for empowerment schools slipped from its grasp.

The unexpected absence of funding could mean Clark County won't go through with its long-anticipated plans to double the number of empowerment schools to eight in August.

The next four empowerment schools, chosen from a list of 12 applicants, were expected to be announced Friday.

Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes said he is scouring the district's $2 billion operating budget for funds to support the additional schools. However, there is little room for maneuvering.

"I'm not sure it's fair to cut existing programs " to support empowerment, Rulffes said.

Empowerment schools receive extra funding and more leeway in instructional methods, staffing and scheduling in exchange for stricter accountability. This spring the Clark County School Board expressed support for empowerment as a concept, but indicated to Rulffes that the district's general fund should not be depleted to support the program.

Assembly Bill 627 sets aside about $9 million over the biennium for empowerment. But the extra $400 in per- student funding isn't available until the 2008-09 school year. Until then, Clark County is eligible for just $50,000 to help develop its empowerment program.

Senate Bill 238, which encompasses much of Gov. Jim Gibbons' empowerment schools proposal, awaits his signature. The bill includes a provision that Clark County be required to convert no less than 5 percent of its more than 330 campuses to the empowerment model.

That could prove tricky for Clark County, which would need to jump from four empowerment schools to 16 by the start of the 2008-09 academic year. Rulffes said he would prefer to expand the program more slowly, going to eight in August and then doubling again the next year.

SB238 originally called for Clark County to receive $1.695 million in the 2007-08 academic year for empowerment schools. The provision was removed from the bill after the specifics of funding the program were shifted to AB627 - and the big-ticket spending was pushed back a year.

The last-minute confusion is proof that Gibbons' "Education First" initiative is a misnomer, said Sen. Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, who proposed his own empowerment bill without funding attached.

He complained that there was no discussion about the bill. "By the time this bill came out it was too late for anyone to really review it or get these types of questions answered," Horsford said. "The education budget was not out first, it moved in the last minutes of the session, as it always does."

Exactly when the 2007-08 funding was dropped from negotiations, and at whose behest, is unknown. Jodi Stephens, a legislative assistant for Gibbons, said the circumstances changed at the last minute during negotiations between the Assembly and the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said he has no recollection of anyone speaking up on behalf of the allocation as the School Account was finalized on May 29. However, it would have made little difference that late in the game, Raggio said.

"It became a moot issue," Raggio said. "At that point we were trying to get any kind of empowerment bill through at all, over the objections of the Assembly members who didn't want to fund it at all."

Joyce Haldeman, executive director of community and government relations for the School District, said she made the discovery the day before the regular session ended June 4. She was puzzled by the omission because all the discussions of school empowerment had always included the 2007-08 funding for Clark County.

"This is one of the hazards of governing quickly when there's not enough money to go around," Haldeman said. "A core group of people end up making the decisions, and it's not always clear what's happened."

There is another avenue of funding available. Lawmakers approved more than $60 million for school innovation and improvement, although there's no guarantee that empowerment campuses will be chosen as recipients or that the grants would be awarded in time for the coming academic year.

Stephens said she expected applications from empowerment schools would be viewed favorably by the commission overseeing the grant fund, which is appointed by Gibbons.

"The governor would encourage that," Stephens said. "We don't have a seat at the (commission) table, but we believe in the empowerment program."