Gov. Joe Lombardo said he and the Nevada Department of Education are concerned over recent budget issues in the Clark County School District.
Four months after what many people called a “budget crisis,” schools around the district are scrambling to meet their projected budgets.
The district sends out individual school budget projections on Jan. 15, which are due back to them on Feb. 7. This year, most elementary schools are short anywhere from $750,000 to more than $1 million, according to National Education Association of Southern Nevada President Vicki Kreidel.
“A lot of my schools are experiencing this pain,” Clark County School Board Trustee Emily Stevens told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Thursday.
It was this time last year that the district sent out incorrect individual school budgets. In its January 2024 individual school budgets, the district undercalculated the average cost of a licensed educator and used the wrong formula for at-risk funding. When the error was discovered in September, schools had to make cuts to both staff and programming.
The issues caused outrage from the public and drew increased monitoring from Lombardo and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert. On Thursday afternoon, Lombardo once again expressed concern over renewed budget issues in the district.
“After budget issues emerged last fall, the State of Nevada issued a notice of noncompliance to CCSD, mandated a corrective action plan, and appointed a compliance monitor for the school district,” Lombardo said in a statement. “As CCSD begins implementation of the corrective action plan with oversight from the compliance monitor, the State of Nevada will remain engaged to ensure the well-being of students remains paramount.”
Compliance monitor Yolanda King and Interim Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell presented the complaince update for the first time at the Jan. 23 CCSD board meeting.
“In four months, we’ve completed this work and made this better,” Larsen-Mitchell told the board.
Stevens wondered if this year’s issues were an attempt by the district to try to establish steps to safeguard from last year’s error and increase transparency, but she has yet to find an answer for the reasoning for the current issues.
Stevens represents District A, which includes much of Henderson, as well as Boulder City and Laughlin. Stevens has meetings scheduled with principals throughout next week, and has reached out to the district for a potential answer or scheduling a public conversation.
She has heard from parents saying that their children’s favorite teacher would be cut or that programs would be cut. In Summerlin, an early bird program for gifted students was cut due to budget issues, causing outrage among parents.
“These parents love their school,” Stevens said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Contact Katie Futterman at kfutterman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ktfutts on X and @katiefutterman.bsky.social. Staff reporter Jessica Hill contributed to this report.
