The Nye County school board approved shaving the district's overall budget by $2,698,364.

The cuts are primarily in response to a statewide budget shortfall of over $1 billion that inevitably trickled down to school funding.

On May 28, the district was notified the state's distributive school account, or DSA, had changed.

School districts are allocated per-pupil funding through the DSA. However, all the money is kept in one pot, so to speak, so a change in one district's allocation amount inevitably affects every other district in the state.

On the 28th, the Nye County School District was informed $11,569,528 of DSA funding through public schools operating property taxes had gone unrecorded for Clark County.

While that may have been good news for Las Vegas schools, ultimately it resulted in reducing the allocation amounts for other districts due to the overall fund's depletion.

In addition, the Nevada Legislature approved a bill reducing textbook expenditure requirements by 50 percent for the 2009 fiscal year.

This result tallies to a $306-per-pupil reduction of funds for Nye County students.

Originally, the district expected to receive $6,917 per student but now will receive $6,611.

Assuming there will be no growth in student population, the ultimate reduction in revenues tallies up to $1,922,292.

The state's general fund operating budget was also reduced by $106 million, a cut that trickles down to school districts and chartered schools.

That cutback is a reflection of a 3.3 percent reduction in budgets statewide, translating to a $776,072 reduction for the Nye County School District.

"Our main concern was to approach this budget reduction with what has the least impact on our classroom," Nye County Superintendent Rob Roberts said.

To meet the general fund reduction, the district was forced to make departmental cuts and eliminate district positions.

The good news is thus far the district has not had to resort to layoffs as many other districts in the state have had to do. And many of the positions were already vacant.

In most cases, cuts simply mean that those positions will not be filled as they are no longer funded.

However, some district employees, such as vice principals for the elementary schools, will be transferred to other positions in the district.

A total of 18 positions, including administrative and teaching positions, netted a savings of $971,288.

Money given by the state to fund programs such as adult education and alternative education will be returned, adding $772,754 to the district piggy bank.

Department cuts total $510,577.

"Do we want to lose these positions? Absolutely not," Roberts said. "This is our training ground for our administrators. But we had to choose between administrators or increasing class sizes."

In another effort to cut costs, the district lessened the number of cell phones from 84 to 45.

Should the district receive more revenue in the future, the board will have the authority to allocate funding to fill the eliminated positions.