School Board’s No. 2 wants to be No. 1

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Monday, Jan. 7, 2008 | 2 a.m.

After more than two years on the Clark County School Board, including the past 12 months as its vice president, Terri Janison says she’s ready to take up the gavel.

When the School Board meets today to elect its officers for 2008, Janison hopes to be named president. She was appointed to the board in fall 2005 and handily won election to a full four-year term the following year.

Of the seven trustees, three have not served as president: Janison, Carolyn Edwards and Shirley Barber, who is in the final year of her third term on the board. Edwards was elected to her first term in 2006. Barber, who could not be reached for comment Friday, has said she does not plan to run again.

Ruth Johnson, the current president, is in her second year of the job. District regulations prohibit board members from serving more than two consecutive years in any office.

If chosen president, Janison said, her first priority will “obviously” be responding to Gov. Jim Gibbons’ proposed 4.5 percent cut to K-12 education funding, which could translate into a $70 million loss for Clark County. The timing of the governor’s announcement that K-12 education would not be protected from cuts (as he had previously pledged), cast a cloud over the holidays for many in the education community, Janison said.

“It’s a shame that it’s happening,” Janison said. “But it does give us an opportunity to really scrutinize our (funding) priorities, so maybe that’s a good thing.”

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Janison isn’t the only one whose holiday season was clouded by the looming cuts. Jeff Weiler, the district’s chief financial officer, said he found his thoughts returning to the issue again and again over the past two weeks.

Adding to the tension is the lack of specific details, he said.

“We still have a lot of unanswered questions, to be honest,” Weiler said. “How the governor arrived at his numbers, what information he used we don’t know anything at this point.”

Weiler will be in Carson City today to meet with the Nevada Education Department to discuss the proposed cuts and, hopefully, return to Clark County with hard numbers. He’s talked with longtime district administrators who all agree that the size and timing of the governor’s proposed cuts are unprecedented in Nevada.

“This is a higher amount than anyone can remember coming from the state,” said Weiler, who joined the district last year from Georgia. “And you can’t cut what you’ve already spent.”

The Legislative Committee on Education will meet Thursday in Carson City to discuss the cuts, among other issues.

Of the district’s $2 billion operating budget, 86 percent goes to salaries and benefits. Those areas are nearly impossible to cut, because the district is bound by negotiated contracts.

“This is the kind of dialogue we’d like to have with the state,” Weiler said, “So they understand the realities we’re facing.”

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It can be argued that some of Clark County’s best and brightest high school students accurately predicted five weeks ago that Sen. Barack Obama would win Thursday’s Iowa Democratic caucus.

Students who attended the Sun Youth Forum on Nov. 20 were asked whom they favored for president. Obama finished first, with 39 votes.

The students were less accurate with the second- and third-place finishers on the Democratic side, as well as with the Republican slate. In the poll, Sen. Hillary Clinton had 22 votes, while former Sen. John Edwards received four votes. In reality, Edwards finished ahead of Clinton.

Former New York Gov. Rudy Giuliani was the top Republican among the students polled, with 12 votes, but had a dismal showing in Thursday’s caucus. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who handily won the Republican race, earned nods from six of the forum’s attendees.

It remains to be seen how the Sun poll stacks up against the results in next week’s New Hampshire primary or, of course, the Nevada caucus on Jan. 19.