Local legislators may brag the Nevada state budget includes a 2.8 percent increase for education.

Nye County Superintendent Rob Roberts said with the funding passed by the legislature, his school district will still have a $5 million shortfall.

The original governor's budget would have created a $9 million shortfall, he said.

The Nye County School District will receive $29 less per student in the Distributive School Account than last year, dropping from $6,611 to $6,582, Chief Financial Officer Ray Ritchie said. With a weighted enrollment of about 6,281 students in the district, that is a $182,149 cut alone.

But Roberts said that's not all of the budget. It also includes federal funding, property and sales tax revenues.

"The big thing people don't realize is the DSA is one portion of how kids are funded. You have just a variety of other activities. You also have to look at your expenditures," Roberts said.

Sales taxes dropped 18 percent, a loss of $1.39 million in funding for the Nye County School District. Property taxes were down 1 percent, another $141,440 cut. General governmental taxes dropped 12 percent, a loss of $254,073. A drop in interest rates will mean $193,000 less revenue for the school district. The school district began the year with $910,928 less in the fund balance than expected and will have to make up $500,000.

On the expense side, Ritchie said the school district is required to fund a $738-585 STEP increase to employees in their contract; faces a 10 percent increase in health insurance, which amounts to $352,834 more in expenses; $441,943 required to restore budget cuts made last year; a $533,811 increase in textbook expenses required by the state; $126,168 more for retirement insurance; a $111,837 increase in utility costs; $154,470 more for other insurance a $148,961 increase in communications to hook up T1 fiber optic lines and other expenses.

The school district budget approved May 20 cut 10 central office positions. Four school administrators will be laid off, including the principal of Gabbs which has only 60 students, and vice-principals at Rosemary Clarke Middle School and Pahrump Valley High School.

Twenty-eight elementary school teaching positions will be eliminated, six teachers at Rosemary Clarke Middle School and three at Pahrump Valley High School. A librarian in Beatty, seven custodians, seven clerical aides and three teachers on special assignment will be eliminated.

The district will cut $467,319 in departments like transportation, athletics and special education and $149,763 in instructional software.

All told, with the legislative budget that passed over the governor's veto last weekend, the Nye County School District has $4.08 million less in revenues than expenditures. The cuts trimmed the overall budget $5 million.

Ritchie said the school district will be negotiating with the teacher's union about reductions in salaries. Each 1 percent reduction in salaries saves six positions, he said.

If the teacher's union accepts a proposal for a three-day furlough per year without pay, for example, that will save $597,000, enough for nine teachers, Ritchie said.

"It's not easy telling teachers, administrators and other support staff, 'I'm sorry but state revenues aren't going to allow us to keep you employed.' That's really what it's come down to the last two months," Nye County School Board President Kevin Pape told the Rotary Club of Pahrump Valley at a luncheon last week. Many of those teachers made the move out to Southern Nevada and bought homes, he said.

Pape said the school board gave administrators the job of balancing class sizes across the district. The student-teacher ratio will average 22 students per teacher for kindergarten through second grades, 25 students per teacher for third through fifth grade. Some classes only had 12 or 16 students, he said.

"Twenty-two kids for an elementary school teacher is not taxing the classroom," Pape said.

The school district had also hired additional teachers the last two years anticipating growth.

"Then the growth didn't keep up. So we had to make some adjustments, we're like everyone else," Pape said.

From the start of the 2007-08 school year in September 2007 to date, enrollment in the Nye County School District dropped 141 students over the past year and a half, according to school district statistics.

"We need help with the (state) legislative body. I cannot tell you how important that is for a legislator to hear how important the funding for education is. That's important not only for you but for your community," Pape told Rotarians.

"Up until the grass roots movement started a couple weeks ago they hadn't heard a lot about funding education in Nevada. That really got me concerned because this is a big deal when you talk about taking $9 million out of a $60 million budget, that's huge, huge."

Pape said his personal project this summer will be educating parents about the free and reduced school lunch program. Expansion of the children enrolled in that program would free up a lot more federal dollars, he said.