ENN Supports Efforts To Identify Revenue and Minimize K-12 Impact

Despite the devastating proposed cuts in Nevada’s budget due to the Covid 19 recession, Educate Nevada Now acknowledges the efforts of Governor Sisolak to minimize impact to K-12 public schools and supports his consideration to explore and evaluate revenue opportunities.

“There are no winners in this situation, but we do recognize that K-12 public schools proportionally fared better than other state agencies and services, even though K-12 makes up more than one third of the state’s budget. However, our public schools still have not fully recovered from the 2008 recession when accounting for inflation and the proposed cuts to our schools will undermine a lot of progress our students have made with the assistance of our achievement programs,” said Amanda Morgan, executive director of Educate Nevada Now.

The most concerning cuts include the ones to Class Size Reduction which support services to maintain class sizes at a lower level, Read By Grade 3 which provides literacy supports to elementary students struggling with reading proficiency and SB178 or Funding For New Nevada Plan which supports struggling English Learner and low income students who do not attend Victory or ZOOM schools.  SB 178 serves some of Nevada’s most vulnerable students and is critical to the transition to a weighted funding formula. Unfortunately, losing this program means our students lose essential resources and sets Nevada back in its objective to achieve a more equitable funding model.

While details on proposed cuts to School Safety, Teacher Incentives and College and Career readiness services remain vague, funding reductions could make continuing these critical programs challenging.

ENN supports the Governor’s intent to prioritize restoring funding to cuts made to K-12 programs such as the SB 178, Class Size Reduction and Safety Initiatives, but this will not happen without bold steps

“We understand the difficulty with making such challenging budget decisions and hope that the Governor gets support to augment existing revenue sources for immediate relief to critical programs and to explore new and more stable revenue streams for the upcoming regular session. We cannot ask the most impacted of Nevada students and residents to make any more sacrifices without asking the same of well-resourced businesses who rely on the labor of our community ,” said Morgan.

ENN recently stood with more than 75 other organizations in a letter to the Governor urging him to begin the difficult but necessary conversation around our state’s antiquated tax structure, while also protecting those most vulnerable in our communities.

“We will be following the progress of the special legislative session while diligently researching any bill drafts that impact our students and communicating important information to Nevada constituents,” Morgan said.

To stay up to date with budget cut proposals, bill drafts and to understand the impact of proposed cuts visit www.NVSpecialSession2020.com

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