Spare our schools

Sunday, July 20, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

The Clark County School Board’s decision to postpone a $9.5 billion building plan should not be seen by the Legislature or the governor as an opportunity to cut K-12 education funding.

If anything, the woefully inadequate education funding from the state should be increased despite Nevada’s economic downturn, which has forced cuts of more than $1 billion in the state’s overall budget.

Postponing the plan to build 73 new schools was just that — a postponement. It was not a cancellation inviting parallel cuts by the state in educational programs.

Most likely the plan to issue bonds for new school construction will be voted on in 2010. The buildings will be needed in the future, despite the drop — likely temporary — in projected student enrollment that allowed the postponement.

Current projections show the district growing less than 2 percent instead of 4 percent, for an enrollment this fall of just more than 314,000.

What needs to be remembered is that the district is still growing and cannot withstand a cut in already low per-pupil funding without serious consequences, such as crowded classes’ becoming even more crowded.

Fortunately, K-12 education largely escaped the financial devastation visited on other state programs during a legislative special session in June. But right up until the session the state’s 17 school districts were in jeopardy. Clark County’s superintendent, Walt Rulffes, fearing a cut to his budget of more than $100 million, ordered a hiring freeze.

That would have left the School District almost 800 teachers short for the fall semester, but legislators were able to find savings in other areas and the freeze was lifted. Schools, though, are not out of danger — another billion dollars may have to be cut from the state budget after the regular legislative session begins in February.

The best solution would be to revise the tax system so that out-of-state companies and others doing business here are paying their fair share. The worst solution would be to start slashing our school budgets, an act whose damage would be irreversible for years.