The Nye County school trustees became the fourth school board in the state to approve a salary change mandated for themselves by the Nevada Legislature. The action came during the board's meeting last Thursday.

School board members were previously paid based on the number of meetings that were held and their respective positions on the panel.

Board members were paid $80 per meeting; the clerk and president were paid an additional $5 per session, with a maximum of six meetings per month.

Under the new Senate Bill 328, however, all board members will receive a flat monthly stipend of $400 per month, regardless of their position on the board.

The new pay scale is based on a three-tiered system where the monthly stipend depends on the population of the county in which a given district lies.

For example, board members of a school district in a county with fewer than 20,000 people will receive $250 per month.

Nye County's population places it on the second tier of the salary scale.

Board President Dennis Keating pointed out that "this is an unfunded mandate" and that the board had already budgeted to pay members for the maximum number of meetings per month.

Clerk Tracy Ward expressed concern about absences. "There's no accountability," she said. "Not on this board, but in the past, we've had board members that were elected, but you would never know they were on the board."

Keating echoed Ward's concerns and pointed out that the new legislation does not stipulate that board members have to attend meetings in order to receive their compensation.

Dotty Merrill, executive director of the Nevada Association of School Boards, explained to the board the legislature shared the same concerns, but she also pointed out raises for school board members have been few and far between.

According to Merrill, in 1991 board members' salaries were raised from $15 to $60 per meeting.

The following year, they were again raised from $60 to $80 per meeting, depending on the member's position on the board.

In 1997, the number of meetings that could be held by a school board was increased to six per month.

"There was a lot of recognition (by the legislature) that school board members do more than just attend public meetings," Merrill explained to the board. "There are parent meetings, there are graduation exercises, there are many, many things that school board members do that extend beyond the beginning and the end of meetings.

"And so the legislature wanted to recognize that the job, done well, is more than just per meeting."

The board approved the salary change to be effective immediately.

The excess money that has been budgeted to compensate board members can be donated to a specific school or back to the school district by members.