Las Vegas Sun

November 28, 2009

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Letter: We are shortchanging education, roads

Thursday, May 24, 2007 | 6:52 a.m.

In most well-run households, assessments are made to meet the needs of the family. The home and car must be maintained, food and clothing purchases budgeted for, and the health needs of the family met . A determination is made on how to pay for these expenditures.

That's not what Nevada does, even though our highways badly need money for expansion and repairs, and our schools are seriously underfunded (Nevada is 50th in spending on education). Gov. Jim Gibbons, in his genius, decrees that taxes and fees will not be raised. In Nevada, forget the need - if it exceeds the revenue flow, then it's not going to happen.

It ticks me off when I hear people talking about "throwing money" at the schools, when school districts across the state, and especially in Clark County, have difficulty finding teachers because of poor salaries, and our classrooms are overcrowded (my grandson's high school English class has 40 students). Yet many people, including the other newspaper, fight tooth and nail to prevent increased spending for education, even though we're last in expenditures among the states.

Since we're stuck with Gov. Gibbons for the next four years, don't expect things to get better.

Richard J. Mundy, Las Vegas

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